First of all, The Dog of Flanders was a famously tragic '70s animated series in Japan (some future Studio Ghibli staff are said to have worked on it, and I think Hayao Miyazaki did backgrounds on one episode), based on the same-named Christmas novel by Oui'da, a Flemish writer. I heard that the series had the same effect on Japanese children as Bambi or Old Yeller had on American children. This movie was released around 1997 as a condensed version of the series (with retro-style character designs and everything). The American version was released by Pioneer a year or so ago.
You know you're in for a bumpy ride when Sean Young (as the grown-up Alois) is worse than the obviously-adult actress playing a little girl. The dubbing varies from horrendous to barely tolerable (in the case of Nello and Robert Loggia's character). Because of this, I was unable to experience the emotions of the story.
However, I don't believe any movies should be judged by it's dubbed version (I don't think any movies should be dubbed at all). Visually, though very much retro in design, the movie has beautiful backgrounds and is smoothly animated, if not nearly as creatively as My Neighbor Totoro or Kiki.
Spoilers: For those who haven't read the original book or seen a movie version besides the cop-out 1999 live action version, the story of Nello and Patrache (the dog of the title) is a tragedy similar to the "double suicide" in Grave of the Fireflies in that they both die in the end after suffering through many hardships and betrayals (and as in Grave, there is a framing device that lets you "know" from the beginning, so that the deaths don't seem like a cheap melodramatic device--the important thing is not that they die, it's what happens when they are alive that leads to it).
As soon as they put up a voting icon, I'll vote a 3 for the dubbed version, and an initial 7 for the subtitled version which I hope will be on DVD soon.
You know you're in for a bumpy ride when Sean Young (as the grown-up Alois) is worse than the obviously-adult actress playing a little girl. The dubbing varies from horrendous to barely tolerable (in the case of Nello and Robert Loggia's character). Because of this, I was unable to experience the emotions of the story.
However, I don't believe any movies should be judged by it's dubbed version (I don't think any movies should be dubbed at all). Visually, though very much retro in design, the movie has beautiful backgrounds and is smoothly animated, if not nearly as creatively as My Neighbor Totoro or Kiki.
Spoilers: For those who haven't read the original book or seen a movie version besides the cop-out 1999 live action version, the story of Nello and Patrache (the dog of the title) is a tragedy similar to the "double suicide" in Grave of the Fireflies in that they both die in the end after suffering through many hardships and betrayals (and as in Grave, there is a framing device that lets you "know" from the beginning, so that the deaths don't seem like a cheap melodramatic device--the important thing is not that they die, it's what happens when they are alive that leads to it).
As soon as they put up a voting icon, I'll vote a 3 for the dubbed version, and an initial 7 for the subtitled version which I hope will be on DVD soon.