An excellent adaptation of a famous Japanese folk tale (and Miyoko Matsutani's novel), Taro, the Dragon Boy (Tatsu no ko Taro, 1979) by Toei Doga.[1]
| Tatsu no ko Taro, Taro the Dragon Boy | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Kiriro Urayama, Peter Fernandez |
| Written by | Kiriro Urayama(screenplay), Isao Takahata(concept), Miyoko Matsutani(novel), Takashi Mitsui(screenplay) |
| Produced by | Toei Doga |
| Starring | Kazuo Kitamura, Sayuri Yoshinaga, Junya Kato, Kirin Kiki, Kazuo Kumakura |
| Cinematography | Motoi Takahashi |
| Edited by | Yasuhiro Yoshikawa |
| Music by | Riichiro Manabe |
| Distributed by | Toei Doga |
Release dates | 17 March 1979  1984  January 31, 2006 (DVD) |
Running time | 75 minutes |
| Country | Japan |
| Languages | Japanese, English |
| Budget | ? |
Plot
Lazy and selfish, Taro loves to eat, sleep, and wrestle with the forest animals. He has little direction or inspiration in his life. That is, until a wizard passing through the forest one day bestows young Taro with a magical potion. Upon drinking the potion, he gains the strength of a hundred men! However, there is a catch: he may only summon this power when he is helping others. Taro soon learns that his long lost mother was transformed into a dragon as punishment for her greediness. He sets forth with a sense of purpose to locate his mother and free her from the spell. All the while trying to help the peasants of his village, as well as other colorful creatures that inhabit the mountain. Inspired by an ancient Japanese folklore, Taro the Dragon Boy is an enchanting animated masterpiece![2],[3]
Reception[4]
Taro, the Dragon Boy is for the most part exquisitely made, with beautifully designed backgrounds, expressive characters, and thoughtful mise-en-scene, all of which compensate for the limited (budget-driven) animation, which lacks the relative fluidity of Hollywood-produced feature film animation. Admirably though, the film looks nothing like Disney or anything else being made by American animators; it looks less like, say, Mulan than the work of animators from Eastern European or the former Soviet Union (especially in the design of some of the animals).
The lovely abstract backgrounds are rendered in the style of sumie, Chinese ink painting, and do an exceptionally fine job evoking the oppressive, mountainous landscapes required by the story. As is par for the course with Japanese anime, mood is expressed with a minimum of motion, with relatively simple shots going a long way to establish the atmosphere of a particular scene, from the dragonflies delicately swarming above the rice crop ready to be harvested, to the chilliness of winter in the lap dissolves of snow falling on Taro's frozen body, and the yukionna ("Snow Women") that threaten him.
The film makes superb use of the CinemaScope-shaped frame, with striking compositions throughout. Disney and other American cartoon factories tended to avoid 'scope like the plague but, during the 1960s and '70s anyway, Japanese animators often filmed their animated features in 'scope, and visually the results were often quite spectacular, as is the case here.
Also worth noting is the memorable and imaginative score by Riichiro Manabe, a wildly inconsistent composer who worked on a wide range of films, from Oshima's Cruel Story of Youth to Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster. Many of the scores from the 1970s are jaw-droppingly bad, but Taro, the Dragon Boy apparently inspired him.
The film's singular "Japaneseness" undoubtedly discouraged potential American distribution when it was new but provides endless fascination now. There are, for instance, ideas that would be considered too gruesome for American animation even today, such as flashback scenes of Taro suckling on his mother's eyeballs for nourishment. (As a dragon, Taro's mother sacrifices her sight to feed her infant son.) Other references would be instantly recognizable to Japanese children but lost on most American audiences, such as the appearance of the Akaoni, the Red Demon of Thunder and Lightning that, among other things, is a fixture on TV weather reports.
More perplexing and probably shocking to prudish Americans is the film's casual and unashamed nudity, from Taro's genitals, which are inadvertently flashed when he stands on his head, to the surprising but completely logical appearance of semi-naked women several times during the story. The film is suitable for all ages, however, and such scenes will probably bother parents much more than their kids.
Cast[5]
Mîna Tominaga ... Aya (voice)
Kazuo Kitamura ... Niwatori-chouja (voice)
Kazuo Kumakura ... Red Oni (voice)
Junya Kato ... Taro (voice)
Sayuri Yoshinaga ... Tatsuya (voice)
Kirin Kiki ... Yamanba (voice)
Links
Kintarō, hero from a similar fairy tale
Momotarō, hero from a similar fairy tale
Toei Animation
References
- ^ http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/19798/taro-the-dragon-boy/
- ^ http://www.indiana.edu/~easc/outreach/educators/library/japan/JT45.shtml
- ^ http://www.amazon.com/Taro-Dragon-Boy-Kazuo-Kitamura/dp/B000CCD242
- ^ http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/19798/taro-the-dragon-boy/
- ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061069/