The Deer King: El Rey Ciervo

One part Mononoke, one part Maquia, and a third part season 3 of Attack on Titan. This should have been a full season of a show instead of a film, which completely hobbles its coherency. I know nothing of the pedigree of the writers and filmmakers and I wanted to like it more, but its a complete mess.

The opening is lovely the way it tells its story totally visually and practically dialogue-free, but the pacing is horribly rushed from there, plot points and exposition are delivered multiple times, its unclear who is with/against who at any time - especially in the third act - and our main character is passive and hardly developed outside of what happens/happened TO him. It ends up feeling like three movies all competing to be the main story instead of a cohesive, satisfying whole.

Our showing began with a message from Ando, the director, who seems like a very sweet, introverted guy who just wanted to make the best film he could. He's a great visualist, so don't be too hard on him. After working with Miyazaki, Kon & Shinkai, he has impossibly big shoes to fill.

The anime medium is more oriented at young adults who prefer action packed, power fantasy stories or comedy. In fact, modern culture has shown a preference for those genres not only in the anime medium. It's really sad that the average person is growing numb towards stories that showcase the emotions that make us human and prefers stories which cater to our primal instincts - lust for power, sexual gratification, violence etc. I feel this is one of the reasons why movies like "The Deer King" are not getting the score and attention they deserve.

The story of "The Deer King" is not very original and does follow a very familiar formula. That, however, plays into the movie's advantage. I will not go into detail why that is the case but I will tell you that you don't need to reinvent the wheel to tell a good story. I don't understand the people who complain that the story of the movie is bad or boring - it's not, it's just focusing more on drama and emotion than on action and lore. It's also extremely easy to follow and the symbolism is there but you don't need to recognize it in order to appreciate the movie.

All in all, this is a production for people who can appreciate good drama and not for people who want fighting scenes, epic battles and power trips. I recommend you watch this anime and ignore the relatively low score that it has.

Corona times.

Power of origin.

Picture itself is an art

Unique universal world view.

No more information i have

I am looking forward see again.

Shika no ou.

Production-wise, it is immaculate.

From the beautiful animations, to the employed designs, cinematography, characters and even the choice of music.

Sadly, while it isn't a terrible movie, it fails to be something at all.. The movie is quite long, and feels even longer. Keeping the viewer always at a distance from anything interesting or concrete. I find really unappealing how it pretends to be something (logic and medicine), while the story clearly shows you something else entirely (spiritual and magical). What are we to take out of it exactly!? What was the message?

Even the way it wraps up is completely unsatisfying.

The comparisons to Mononoke are utterly unavoidable. And rob it of any individuality and tarnishing the layer of creativity and world-building it could have attained alone. It's so weird when a studio could be capable of copying something half-way with such quality, yet leaving it without a soul.

It's hard to care for these kind of photoplays.

I'd give it a 5, but everything aside from the script is just too good.

The Deer King sets a high bar in many areas, but falls short of sufficient in others. Visually, this film gets near perfect marks with a vibrant animation style that matches perfectly with themes regarding the spiritual connection to nature and the interconnectedness of all things.

While these factors create a strong premise for the film, the story itself feels unfinished - an extra 30-50 minutes of runtime would be needed to tie all the loose ends together. So much exposition is needed that it seems like this story was supposed to be the second film in a trilogy. This leaves the audience feeling like a bystander in their world rather than directly in the center of the action.

This isn't quite Princess Mononoke, but for fans of stunning animation and themes of harmony with nature, this film is worth seeing.