Makoto Shinkai's new animated film "Journey to the Bell Buds" as director and screenwriter has finally been released in the mainland.
In two days of release, the box office has exceeded 200 million yuan, and the box office is predicted to be 687 million.
The Japanese box office has now reached 13.9 billion yen, which is still some distance from "Your Name" 25.03 billion yen and "Weather Child" 14.19 billion.
In terms of film festivals, the film was also nominated for the Japan Academy Award for Best Animation and Best Score. Not long ago, it was also shortlisted for the main competition unit of the Berlin Film Festival.
This is the first time that a Japanese animated film has won this award in 21 years since "The Hidden Girl" was shortlisted for the Berlin Film Festival in 2002.
The judges also had a very high evaluation of "Journey to Lingya", saying that it was "humorous, sentimental and beautiful, and it is quite a moving epic moving film", and foreign media rated it as "the highest level of Shinkai Makoto".
Previously, some media believed that Makoto Shinkai could be considered the successor of "Hayao Miyazaki", and now it seems that he is already an excellent director that no one can match!
At present, the Douban score of the film is 7.7, and 58,800 people have rated it.
"Commemorating the 311 earthquake and Japanese sightseeing tours, the ending is crying."
"The picture is as beautiful as ever, and there is nothing to say."
"Simple story. The details and resonance are full of imagination. The wonderful thing about the script is that the male protagonist becomes a chair, so that many life details are perfectly integrated. ”
After "Your Name" and "Children of the Weather", this is Makoto Shinkai's third anime based on natural disasters, with the main line being "earthquake" and mentioning the real disaster event "2011 East Japan Earthquake", adding more realistic colors to the story.
Here are 5 highlights of the film for the audience to enjoy.
"Journey to the Bell Buds" Highlight 1: A more moving plot than "Your Name"
Makoto Shinkai's latest animated film "Suzuya Journey", the story is about a 17-year-old girl Suzuya, on the way to school, she meets a mysterious young man Kusanagi who is looking for a mysterious door, and follows him out of curiosity, but accidentally closes an old door, which makes countless doors appear all over Japan, if not closed in time, it will lead to disaster in the world, in order to save the world, Suzuya embarks on a journey to close the door.
In the story, there are not only fantasy scenes, unique Xinhai Makoto world view, and love elements that many people love, I believe that the audience will definitely have a feeling of entering a wonderful experience after watching it.
Many years after the 311 East Japan Earthquake that shocked the world, director Makoto Shinkai did not want the pain to be forgotten, and hoped to explore the humanity and emotions behind the disaster through this work.
Therefore, in the movie, you can see Japan that has undergone drastic changes due to disasters, but Makoto Shinkai is worried that "Journey to the Lingya" may hurt the audience's emotions, so he arranges a lot of ingenuity in the play, such as: the trailer appears a cat that can talk to people, a lively chair running around, in order to balance the grayness of the plot.
"Journey to the Bell Buds" Highlight 2: A self-journey to reconcile with pain
Although the plot is related to disasters, what Makoto Shinkai wants to describe through "Journey to the Bell Buds" is that he hopes that people will no longer be bound by the shadows of the past, but can get rid of the pain and successfully walk out of their own lives. Therefore, in the story, you can see that Suzuya was affected by the past in childhood, but in the end, she reconciled with herself and gained courage and self-confidence.
However, "Journey to the Bell Buds" said that it is a closed trip, which can be said to be a journey of "repairing the past", I believe that no matter who it is, there are those past events that are not willing to be recalled, and after watching "The Journey of the Bell Buds", it may bring you the motivation to let go of your heart and move forward.
"Suzuya Journey" Highlight 3: The mysterious "Closing Master" Sota Kusata
The male protagonist of "Suzuya Journey", Sota Sota, in the plot, he is a senior male student, inheriting the mission passed down from generation to generation in his family and becoming a "door closing master", while searching for the mysterious door, he meets the heroine Iwato Suzuya and embarks on a closing journey with him.
What attracted the audience's attention the most was his long hair, handsome but serious look, which was jokingly called "Xinhai Makoto's version of Hall" by many netizens! Interestingly, a "mantra" that Kusata would recite when closing the door actually set off a heated discussion on the Internet.
"Calling the sun without seeing God, the god of the distant ancestors, these ancient mountains and rivers, sincerely fearful, only this... Hinomi is a weasel-like creature that lives underground for many years and feeds on earthworms, while the god of earth is a land-like existence in Japanese folk beliefs.
Highlight 4 of "Journey to the Bell Buds": Gorgeous audio-visual
"Suzuya Journey" has Shinkai's usual gorgeous picture aesthetic and beautiful music, depicting the beautiful scenery of Kyushu Miyazaki Prefecture, Shikoku Ehime Prefecture, Kobe, Tokyo, and Miyagi Prefecture, and the natural landscapes, ruins, and fictional scenes with supernatural powers that appear in the film are very shocking on the big screen.
The soundtrack is produced by the popular Japanese rock band RADWIMPS, which has collaborated with Makoto Shinkai three times, and the well-known composer Kazuma Jinouchi. And the mysterious female voice that surprised the world in the trailer was the much-watched female singer Shiming on TikTok, which caused a discussion before the movie was released.
The soundtracks of Makoto Shinkai's previous films are usually piano-based, and "Journey to the Bell Buds" emphasizes the bridge of the power of calamity, and the arrangement adds low percussion instruments, artificial language and folk harmony, etc., to create a mysterious atmosphere that makes people chill.
Also because this movie is mainly paired with pure music, the two theme songs sung by the vocals only appear at the end of the story, and the overall feeling of "RADWIMPS large-scale MV" is not there.
The narrative of "Suzu Bud Journey" is similar to a road movie, using Suzuya's experience to connect the Shinto concept of "reverence for all things" in Japan, the description of the modern online world, and psychological trauma repair. While satisfying the audio-visual feast, you can also understand the courage to face the pain.
"Journey to the Bell Buds" Highlight 5: The "Minister" that makes the cat slaves fall in love deeply
Cute mascots, lively chairs and talking cats are added to the film! Among them, the cat "minister" occupies a lot of scenes in the movie, and the round eyes and smart appearance will definitely make the cat itch and want to suck the cat well.
And Makoto Shinkai himself is a super cat slave, he himself has 2 cats, and his debut work is also a short work of "She and Her Cat" with the theme of cats. So in the movie, you can see that Makoto Shinkai has a lot of descriptions of the "minister", and also arranges a rather special ending, as for what it is, please go into the cinema to watch it.