Irish Film Institute -THE TALE OF THE PRINCESS KAGUYA

THE TALE OF THE PRINCESS KAGUYA

Director: ISAO TAKAHATA

137 minutes, Japan, 2013, Subtitled, Colour, D-Cinema


This film was released on Friday 27th March 2015 and is no longer screening.

This interpretation of a 10th-century Japanese fairytale has been a labour of love for veteran Studio Ghibli director Isao Takahata (Grave of the Fireflies). Eight years in the making, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya is revealed as an animated film of rare, delicate beauty. It tells the story of a bamboo cutter Okina, who chances on a dainty sprite inside a bamboo stalk.

When he brings the sprite home to his wife, Ona, it has swelled to the size of a human baby, and the couple decide to raise her as their own daughter, calling her Princess.  Further discoveries convince Okina that Princess has been sent to him so that she can achieve great things, and he takes his family off to the capital, where Princess is given the name Kaguya and is soon courted by the most rich and influential men in the land. (Notes by Michael Hayden.)

SPECIAL FAMILY-FRIENDLY SCREENING: Please note that the 11am screening on Saturday April 4th is a dubbed English language version. All other screenings are in Japanese with English subtitles.  

Don’t forget we now schedule weekly.

★★★★ The Irish Times ★★★★ Irish Independent ★★★★ Movies.ie

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