So, how about Wolf Children? I’d say that only some of Yuki’s narration is necessary. Sulking and glaring and crying, and Adult Ralphie talking over him and explaining his thought processes at the time is a big help in keeping the audience’s attention while Young Ralphie communicates in pouts and scowls and sniffles.
I mean, you could guess, but the still-horrified voice of Adult Ralphie explaining the unthinkable thing he’d done kind of Makes that scene for me, personally. Also! I think having Adult Ralphie narrate A Christmas Story allows for more realistic-acting kids, because Young Ralphie has a lot of scenes where he’s, y’know, just being a kid. Also on a purely because-we-can’t-piss-off-the-censors point, in the scene where Ralphie says “fudge” in slow motion, we wouldn’t know he actually said “fuck” without the narrator to tell us he did. In the case of A Christmas Story, the narrator is an adult looking back on his childhood, so we get an extra layer of hindsight we wouldn’t have gotten had the film just carried on as is with the child actors.
I mean, you could call creative license on this – Titanic is told by Old Rose, but there are scenes in that movie she was absolutely 100% not present for – but I just wonder why, when Hana was there for all the stuff in the movie except the scenes with the kids at school, Hana wasn’t made the narrator. Yuki tells the story as if it’s information her mother’s told her over the years, but there’s a problem with that logic: the movie takes us through Hana’s whole courtship with Shapeshifting Wolf Guy, their night of bestial passion, and a whole bunch of bureaucratic, farming, and social services stuff that I doubt Hana ever explained to her eleven-year-old daughter. After all, the story begins with Hana in college at the age of nineteen, before she’s even had kids. I can see why the filmmakers chose her to be the narrator since her father dies not long after she’s born and her brother choses to become a wolf permanently near the end of the film, but part of me wonders why they didn’t choose Hana. The narrator of the story is Yuki, daughter of Human and Shapeshifting Wolf. Hana wasn’t always a mother, but it was always what she was meant to be.įun Fact: During his day-long stay on the Gold Coast during Supanova this year, he signed a poster for me.Welcome back for a more (hopefully) coherent part of the review!Ī rash of spoilers from this point on, folks! Teach your children to chase their dreams – and smile through the tears as they disappear into the world in search of who they will become. It left Hana bruised, scratched, exhausted, and joyously overwhelmed as her pups grew stronger and wandered further every day. Raising her little wild things was an adventure. Frightened of being discovered, Hana and her wolf children fled to the countryside to build a new life.
Hana loved her mate fiercely, but fate took him from her, leaving her alone with two unusual kids she didn’t know how to raise. Then she met a man, who turned out to be a wolf, and together they built a family. She was bright and pretty, and her future held endless possibilities. Hana was a student before she was a mother. While I have held out on reviewing the title until it received a physical release, you can check out my interview with Mamoru Hosoda HERE. Sure, all the feature-length animated films were interesting to watch during Reel Anime 2013, but the one film I have been eager to check out again since seeing it during Gold Coast Film Festival 2013 was Wolf Children, the latest anime film from legendary Japanese director Mamoru Hosoda.Īustralian publisher Madman Entertainment have today shared the English dubbed trailer for the film, building up for its DVD and Blu-ray release in the region this December, perfect for a stocking filler.