As The Film Stage notes, marketing can be exhausting. And with Comic-Con in full swing, the deluge of material from the conference floor in San Diego can seem pretty crass. Essentially, the whole shindig is one big excuse for studios to dump all kinds of swag both to those roaming around the halls of the massive nerd complex, and online, where character posters galore and the like scream at your eyeballs for attention. So, a lengthy trailer that actually shows footage and isn’t cluttered up by voiceover and text and teases goes down like a much needed glass of water in the desert.
A four-minute spot has emerged for Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Wind Rises,” and it’s pretty generous peek at a film that animation heads are certainly looking forward to. Based on the novel by Tatsuo Hori and the manga by Miyazaki, the film is inspired by the life of Jiro Horikoshi, the man who designed the Zero fighter plane that was used during World War II, and infamously during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Uh, bring the kids? It certainly seems a bit more dramatic that the more fantastical work folks associate with the director, so we’ll be curious to see what the final shape of this one is like.
No word yet on a U.S. release date, so just watch below (it starts at the 1:20 mark).
"Nice catch!" Yay, I speak Japanese!
Well, it looks absolutely stunning. Expected nothing less of Miyazaki, but it's really beautiful. And nobody does flying like Miyazaki. He loves flying and therefore the subject matter kind of makes sense, but it still sounds unusual for him. He has always been a fantasy kind of guy. This film, however, seems to be more in the vein of Isao Takahata. I just hope the moral and political aspects of the story work out.