kal
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Location: Ottawa, Canada
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| Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 10:40 pm Post subject: Princess Mononoke |
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Princess Mononoke
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| Quote: | 'Princess Mononoke' is one of Miyazaki's finest films for so many reasons. Its animation is glorious escapism. Its plot is necessarily complex and messy. Its characters are layered, and driven by various conflicting ideals. It's so rich in just about everything it does. With a perfect video presentation, and a faultless audio presentation (if you can get past the whole "dubtitles" thing) 'Princess Mononoke' comes highly recommended.
The Video: Sizing Up the Picture
Like every Studio Ghibli film Disney has brought to Blu-ray, 'Princess Mononoke' looks the best it ever has. Disney has provided a faithful, beautiful presentation for this animated classic. It's easy to see that they took their time, and didn't rush. The result is a transfer that showcases Miyazaki's splendid artwork as well as it possibly could.
The detail of the animation is top-notch. There are some soft spots, but it's better they be left alone rather than tinkering with the whole transfer to try and correct them. Every frame looks natural, referencing the time it was animated. However, the transfer is free from any sort of source gunk like dust or debris. Lines are solid. It's amazing how superb the animation quality is here. I'm still awe about how great the demon at the beginning of the film looks in high-def. All those independently wiggling tentacles. All black and gray, and all of them as visible as the next.
Color is always bright and vivid. There's never a point where color doesn't play an extremely important part in the animation. Everything from primary to secondary colors are presented with care, and given the vividness they deserve. There isn't anything in the way of blocking (which, again, was mildly surprising seeing that the erratic movements of the demon's wormlike structure could've easily caused visual problems). Aliasing and banding are non-existent too, which for an animated feature is particularly impressive. Banding can be, and has been a problem when transferring older animated features to Blu-ray. In short, fans should be confident that they're getting an authentic high-def transfer of the film they've loved all these years. It's really great seeing this movie look this good.
The Audio: Rating the Sound
The English dub is what it is. Many find fault with the so-called "dubtitles," which mirror the English dub instead of using the correct subtitles released on DVD in 2000. It's understandable if this is a dealbreaker for you. Disney should have included the subtitles from the 2000 DVD release, instead of reverting back to the dubtitles, which have caused endless problems among faithful fans. But, when reviewing the actual sound coming out of the speakers, we've got to forget that for a moment. With that aside, 'Princess Mononoke' is given a wondrously satisfying DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix which makes the movie feel more alive than it ever has before. Lossless mixes are provided for both Japanese and English tracks.
The dialogue is clear and centered up front. The English actors providing the dubbed version of the film do seem a little lackadaisical time from time, offering up voice acting that seems a little too subdued given the movie's context. However, the dialogue is always intelligible, whether you're listening to the English or Japanese track.
There are some good, engaging ambient sounds coming from the rear speakers. When war finally comes the soundfield really cranks up, giving you a very like-you're-there type of feeling. With such deep, sustained LFE usage, 'Princess Mononoke' has very little to complain about in the audio department. As a matter of fact, there's no picking of nits to be had. It sounds utterly superb. |
Kal
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