Given the unfair, and to my mind rather stupid, review that people now see about this film, I offer my own review.
The live-action version is almost as touching, and fury-inducing, as the animated masterpiece (which I urge everyone to watch, despite the fact I feel an odd sense of dread when I choose to watch it again!) The acting is very fine. It is well-directed and beautifully shot, with a slightly washed-out, almost sepia-like look that adds to but does not distract from the story.
This version of the book has a slightly wider focus, unlike the anime's very tight focus on the brother and sister. It shows how other characters besides the children face the war. The aunt, shown in the anime to be just another simply callous, neglectful character (e.g. the doctor who quickly dismisses Sayaka's dying of malnutrition), is here more than simply neglectful: she is willing to lie and steal from her own niece & nephew, partly out of concern for her own children but largely out of greed.
Two other story lines show other takes on the effects and reactions to the war. One involves a kind and honest schoolmaster and his family, who befriend the orphans. The schoolmaster's honesty goes for naught as he is forced to kill his wife, daughters, and himself for the sake of his "duty to the Emperor." The other follows a cynical young man evading war duties because of asthma, advising the boy to do the same.
I'm afraid the movie is just as bleak, but also beautiful. It also ends on a note both bleaker and stronger than the anime. It is far less sentimental* and just as clear an indictment of the mindset that war produces.
I rather wish it had been a three- or four- part TV mini-series, since many of its episodes go by too quickly for me, but it is definitely worth watching.
*Sentimental, in the case of the animated "Hotaru no Haka" is very great praise.
The live-action version is almost as touching, and fury-inducing, as the animated masterpiece (which I urge everyone to watch, despite the fact I feel an odd sense of dread when I choose to watch it again!) The acting is very fine. It is well-directed and beautifully shot, with a slightly washed-out, almost sepia-like look that adds to but does not distract from the story.
This version of the book has a slightly wider focus, unlike the anime's very tight focus on the brother and sister. It shows how other characters besides the children face the war. The aunt, shown in the anime to be just another simply callous, neglectful character (e.g. the doctor who quickly dismisses Sayaka's dying of malnutrition), is here more than simply neglectful: she is willing to lie and steal from her own niece & nephew, partly out of concern for her own children but largely out of greed.
Two other story lines show other takes on the effects and reactions to the war. One involves a kind and honest schoolmaster and his family, who befriend the orphans. The schoolmaster's honesty goes for naught as he is forced to kill his wife, daughters, and himself for the sake of his "duty to the Emperor." The other follows a cynical young man evading war duties because of asthma, advising the boy to do the same.
I'm afraid the movie is just as bleak, but also beautiful. It also ends on a note both bleaker and stronger than the anime. It is far less sentimental* and just as clear an indictment of the mindset that war produces.
I rather wish it had been a three- or four- part TV mini-series, since many of its episodes go by too quickly for me, but it is definitely worth watching.
*Sentimental, in the case of the animated "Hotaru no Haka" is very great praise.