When Harvey Weinstein obtained the North-American distribution rights to Princess Mononoke, he approached director Hayao Miyazaki and insisted on a shorter version of the film that would be better attuned to American audiences. However, Miyazaki was still so upset by the heavily cut version of his Nausicaä de la vallée du vent (1984) (released as 'Warriors of the Wind') that he angrily left the meeting. Several days later, Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki sent a katana sword to Weinstein's office with 'NO CUTS' embedded into its blade. The film was later released in the USA in its uncut version. When asked about the incident in an interview, Miyazaki simply smiled and stated "I defeated him".
This is the last major animated motion picture to be filmed on plastic animation cels.
When the English dubbed version was screened at TIFF, Hayao Miyazaki introduced his film to the audience, saying: "With Princess Mononoke, I intentionally threw out all the rules of entertainment movie-making, which is why it will take some time for a true evaluation of this film to emerge. I hope you will enjoy all of the ridiculously long 2 hours and 13 minutes."
Director Hayao Miyazaki personally corrected or redrew more than 80,000 of the film's 144,000 animation cells.
When it was announced that the Miramax/Buena Vista region-1 DVD would contain only the English-language dialogue track (adapted by Neil Gaiman), there was enough fan protest to convince Miramax to delay the release in order to include the original Japanese-language dialogue.
Hayao Miyazaki: [pigs] The tribe of boars, one of which is the demon Ashitaka fights in the beginning.