I remembered how moved I was when I saw "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" in 2006, and I can't forget the phrase "Time waits for no one".
At that time, Mamoru Hosoda was not a top-level director, but a simple and fresh work could hit people's hearts directly.
Of course, Tsutsui Yasutaka's original work and Sadamoto Yoshiyuki's character design contributed a lot, but it was Supervisor Hosoda Mori who really shined with the movie.
Over the years, Hayao Miyazaki retired, Xun Takada was immortal, Min Jin passed away, Otomo Keyang and Oshii kept their jobs, Anno Hideaki continued to add ingredients to fry cold rice, and Milin Hongchang was not yet ready. Japan's original animation movies, which can continue to output influence, are probably the only two left: Hosoda Mori and Shinkai Makoto.
So "Children of the Monsters" was already highly anticipated, or to some extent, highly anticipated before its release.
Unfortunately, after reading it, I was disappointed.
Parallel different worlds, blood fighting, emotional healing, the pattern of Hosoda Mamoru's works seems to be getting bigger and bigger, the elements are more and more rich, the pictures are as beautiful as ever, and the soundtrack is also beautiful, but the two-hour story is difficult to touch the heart.
This is just an entertainment-oriented commercial production. It is about family affection and self-awareness. Japanese healing is still the main theme of the movie, and action fighting has become the shell that supports the scene.
The lost orphan Lian encountered the same lonely monster Xiong Che in the escape. After crossing the narrow alley, he broke into the monster's world. Shibuya and Shiten Street, the connection point of the two worlds, Lian and Xiong Toru, are entangled by a strange master-disciple relationship. Quarreling, bickering, fighting, but relying on each other, in the collision of hard characters, their inner defenses and hostility to the surrounding gradually melted away, and the two people who were wrapped in loneliness saw a wider world and future, and became each other. rely on.
Monsters are just human beings who have changed their form. Strangers are like fathers and teachers like friends, the analysis and re-cognition of lonely hearts, and the detailed description of family affection are all familiar tastes of Hosoda Mori.
But the taste is not right, where is the problem?
The broken style, the jumping rhythm, the joys and sorrows of the characters are sudden and surging, but very deliberate. The 119-minute length is not short, but the story is simple and rude, and the heavy-handed father-son relationship is like a junior high school student's composition. All emotions are directly displayed to the audience, and all mental activities are directly spoken through the lines. When sensationalizing, he almost shook the audience and said, here are the tears, you have to cry! There was a fierce fight, and a teenage concern. Blood and healing were not well integrated in the movie. Unreasonable anger and alienation, sudden insertion of girls and ignorant romances, the animation is full of various elements, but it makes people feel complicated.
This is also expected, the original work, script, and supervision are all performed by Hosoda Mori, the character set by Masamoto Yoshiyuki is gone, and the script's Sadoko Okuji has disappeared. The posture makes the whole world view extremely huge, and it is inevitable to be in a hurry, taking care of one thing and losing the other.
This is also Hosoda Mori's compromise on the mainstream market, and even set his sights on the world market that is larger than Japan's mainland. The entire narrative rhythm and transition of the film is more like an American animation, with gorgeous pictures, incomparably elaborate storyboards, smooth movements, and a dubbing lineup of stars. , the character and emotions of the characters are too extensive, and it is difficult for the audience to fully substitute the emotions. Improper rhythm and abrupt turns only make people feel cheating and pity.
It seems that Mamoru Hosoda has suddenly become a businessman, and he is calculating what the audience will like and how foreigners will accept it. As for whether these elements fit together, it is not natural, but it is not that important.
Even the film's abrupt ties to Melville's Moby-Dick doesn't add depth and depth to the film.
In the end, this is just a chaotic and superficial commercial entertainment theater animation with beautiful pictures and excellent hardware quality. He did not meet the expectations of fans over the past few years. Although it is not ugly and worth the price, it is not. Hosoda Mori cannot achieve a higher status.
However, in a sense, Hosoda Mori also succeeded. "Son of the Monster" was a big hit at the Japanese box office, and the business made money, so the high investment in the next production will come as scheduled. And Mamoru Hosoda is still the light of hope for Japanese animation films.
Which direction will the future Hosoda Mamoru choose? Continue to look at money and make a movie that completely pleases the market, with complex but simple content; or an animation that restores the original intention, removes the tediousness, returns to innocence, and takes care of the original intention?
We can only wait for time to give the answer.
Before that, the one I often wanted to watch again was still the "Girl Who Leapt Through Time".
After all, although there are many animations, excellent works are rare. At the moment when the Japanese animation masters are gradually disappearing, let's do it and cherish it.
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