The Deer King director brought every lesson from Princess Mononoke to his epic fantasy
Masashi Ando learned from the master, and he’s not afraid to admit it. A quarter of a century ago, Hayao Miyazaki — the most influential figure in global animation since Walt Disney — broke a remarkable three-film streak of complex-but-kid-friendly fare with Princess Mononoke, an epic blending period fantasy and sociocultural criticism with a tender, multifaceted relationship at its core. Ando was Miyazaki’s chief animation director, and responsible in part for its memorable character design. And its fingerprints are all over his directorial debut, The Deer King, which is now out on digital platforms and coming to Blu-ray on Oct. 18.
“I really think Princess Mononoke is inside of me, and I really can’t wipe off what I had contributed, or what that movie had done to me,” he said, through a translator, earlier this year. “I do think, when I saw the final cut of the film, I realized that it was really thanks to Mononoke that I was able to visualize some of the aspects in The Deer King.”
For lovers of Miyazaki’s film, that’s clear from the get-go. Adapted from Nahoko Uehashi’s fantasy novel series of the same name, and co-directed by another Ghibli veteran, Masayuki Miyaji, The Deer King is something of a piece with Mononoke in both story and style. Its protagonist is an exile in a land torn apart by human rapacity. He is afflicted by a curse that threatens that land even further, and is preternaturally gifted in combat despite the gentle heart barely concealed by his survivalist’s demeanor. He is prone to quiet kindnesses toward those he encounters and fiercely protective of the one he loves. Over the course of his adventure, he makes friends and enemies on many sides by sticking to his commitments and principles despite
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