Movie Review: Ponyo
September 17th, 2009
We saw Ponyo on the theatre on my birthday. Both of us thought we were going to see the latest Disney animated feature (oops, that’s The Princess and the Frog). Instead, we saw a Japanese animated film which has been adapted for the US. It has received a bunch of accolades and awards, but it was NOT what we were expecting to see!
WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW
It’s based on the Hans Christian Anderson story, The Little Mermaid, and is about a fish/girl who lives in the sea and wants to become human. Her father doesn’t want her to leave the sea and abhors the humans who pollute and wreck the earth. The fish/girl finds her way to the shore where a little boy puts her in a bucket, names her Ponyo, and shows her to his friends. He’s heartbroken when the creepy sea-father sends his wave minions to retrieve his daughter. His daughter has magic powers and ends up willing herself into human form and escapes with her hordes of tiny sisters (in fish form) to find the boy, Sosuke. She disrupts the balance of nature and causes typhoons and mayhem in the process. Somehow Sosuke realizes that this little girl is his fish, Ponyo. The little boy and his mother accept this fact, which was hilarious to us. “Oh right, ok, this little girl is that fish that you had in a bucket a few days ago. Makes sense. Well, let’s have dinner!”
Sosuke and Ponyo are left alone when the mother goes to rescue the seniors since she works as a nursemaid at the home. Considering how crazy the mother drives throughout the movie, they are probably safer left alone (mind you, they are 5 year olds). The storm and imbalance that Ponyo has created has resulted in chaos for Sosuke’s town. Sosuke and Ponyo wake in the morning to find that they are still alone and set out to rescue Sosuke’s mother. Ponyo turns a toy boat into a larger boat that they can use, and they set out on their adventure.
Long story short, the creepy father and Ponyo’s goddess mother decide that Ponyo can remain human forever if Sosuke’s love is true. Sosuke, the 5-year old. Of course, his love is true and Ponyo is turned into a human (and loses her magic skills) and the kids live happily ever after.
I’m not used to watching Japanese animation, so perhaps all of the genre is a tad strange. This movie certainly was. In the first 5 minutes, we wondered what we had gotten ourselves into. The whole thing was quite weird! I didn’t feel upset that we had seen it, though I’m not sure it was the best choice for us considering we’re fairly limited on the movies we can see in the theatre these days! I definitely liked it well enough. It had some cute parts and some funny parts (though I don’t know if all the “funny” parts were intentional). I’m glad that I saw it, but I’m not going to be running out to get the DVD!
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