The Teenager and the Heron is not just an animated film, but a cinematic masterpiece that audiences who love the seventh art cannot miss in theaters this December.
For the first time, a Ghibli film was shown commercially in Vietnam
Many generations of global audiences have grown up with Ghibli’s works. In the 80s, Studio Ghibli released the first film Castle in the Sky, and then created many childhood memories for the audience with My Neighbor Totoro, Grave of the Fireflies, The Whisperer of the Fireflies. Heart, Princess Mononoke or two peaks that conquered global audiences, Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle.
Despite leaving such a deep impression on the audience, almost everyone has seen one of Ghibli’s works, but the special thing is that in Vietnam, almost everyone has only just seen it. Watch the above movies on the small screen. There were two Ghibli films shown in theaters in Vietnam, Spirited Away and Grave of the Fireflies, but both were within the framework of the Film Festival, with extremely limited screenings.
Therefore, Ghibli fans could not help but be excited about the news that The Boy and the Heron was being shown commercially in Vietnam. This means that fans of this studio’s films nationwide can enjoy the work on the big screen for the first time easily and conveniently.
Pay tribute to the Ghibli legacy with nostalgic visuals and music
Right from the first works, Studio Ghibli has made its own mark with animations with extremely unique drawings and music with its own style, not to be confused with any other film or musical product. . Ghibli drawings have even become an art and animation style pursued by many subsequent artists. Meanwhile, the music in Ghibli films still has a strong life of its own to this day, being covered by many instrumentalists, as well as having private concerts recreating these melodies.
Cultural and artistic events with Ghibli themes take place in many places around the world. Besides the famous “official” Ghibli Park, events promoting Ghibli-themed culture and society are also held in many places across Japan. In Thailand, Ghibli-themed exhibitions at Central World, Bangkok was a huge success, attracting a huge number of domestic and foreign visitors, causing the event to be extended until 2024 due to high demand. Images, music and “Ghibli space” in general have become a style, an important artistic beauty in current popular culture.
And with The Boy and the Heron, audiences will experience all those Ghibli features again, but with a completely different plot that makes viewers the most excited. The film is still made by the director duo Miyazaki Hayao and musician Joe Hisaishi, who have been together since Ghibli’s first works, and are also behind a series of this studio’s most popular films. The combination of this veteran duo will recreate all that is quintessential and characteristic of Ghibli in the most original, emotional way.
Following the journey of The Teenager and the Heron, the audience will once again step into a world of imagination, with magical adventures, strange creatures, supernatural phenomena… Impressions of famous works such as Spirited Away or Howl’s Moving Castle are clearly shown through the film.
And with such beautiful images and music, enjoying it on the big screen will bring an unforgettable cinematic experience to the audience, completely different from what has been witnessed on the small screen. Therefore, Ghibli fans will not be able to miss the opportunity they have been waiting for so long to enjoy Ghibli movies to the fullest.
Imbued with a “surreal” look and profound layers of meaning
Like many other Ghibli films, The Boy and the Heron has the appearance of fantasy, mixing dreams and reality, making viewers fly and dream in the world of creativity, waiting for what their thoughts will be. What limits can a director take him to?
However, The Boy and the Heron has a more surreal style than his previous films, and compared to the masterpiece that was on the Oscar nomination list 10 years ago, The Wind Rises, it is even more impressive. distinctive. The audience will not be able to stop being curious about the images, details and characters he created in the film. Some are truly random, but that is also the unique point of the audience’s journey with The Boy and the Heron: we always have our own interpretation for each event that happens.
As a film directed by Hayao Miyazaki at the age of “seventeen years old”, the film brings many multi-layered metaphors and contemplative thoughts about life and death, about personal trauma. , about the legacy of his life with Studio Ghibli, about the sadness of war in the past that shaped his childhood and the future of Ghibli’s “brainchild” when he had “a weak back and tired arms”. The Boy and the Heron is not a simple linear film, where everything is resolved sequentially and then easily ended; This is a film that audiences will need to watch over and over again, not only to immerse themselves in the world of Ghibli’s ultimate art, but every time they watch it, they will discover a new layer of meaning and message. strange, especially when linking them to the life of this genius.
Perhaps because of that, The Teenager and the Heron had a very successful debut in North America and many countries around the world. The film surpassed Hollywood titles to dominate the North American box office, becoming the first Japanese animated film to achieve this impressive achievement. All over the country’s newspapers, information about The Boy and the Heron is abundant, enough to show the fever that the movie created. The film’s voice cast in North America includes names that have been nominated for major awards such as Christian Bale, Robert Pattinson, Willem Dafoe, Florence Pugh, Gemma Chan, Dave Bautista… a dream cast that Even Hollywood movies are probably difficult to “get together”. And with all of this, The Teenager and the Heron is truly a major cinematic event that Vietnamese audiences will not be able to miss.
On the evening of December 11 (Vietnam time), the 81st Golden Globe Awards announced the nominations, in which The Teenager and the Heron were named in two categories: Best Animated Film and Best Music. the best.
THE BOY AND THE HERON – Vietnamese title: THE TEENAGER AND THE HERRON is currently showing in theaters.
