Review by: Andrew Chan FCCA AACTA FIPRESCI
Review Date: 6th May 2014

Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Writers: Hayao Miyazaki (comic), Hayao Miyazaki (screenplay)

Support our decade of film scholarship on Asian Cinema by buying Official DVD or Blu-ray release from our Store

Retiring director Hayao Miyazaki has a career and filmography that one can only dream of and while he still has plenty to give, it’s difficult to foresee what else the famed auteur can come up with that he have not done before. I wouldn’t say that “The Wind Rises” is a fitting finale or a perfect curtain call, but it could easily have been worst. This film seems to drag on and there are times when it seems a bit repetitive and even going nowhere, yet there are moments of inspiration and enlightenment that made the journey worthwhile. A film about the making of Japanese fighter jets will always be controversial to the world audience as well as Japanese own acceptance of its past wrongdoings. In many ways, Miyazaki doesn’t glorify the war, but rather allows the dreamer and inventor to walk through the shambles of his own creation. That indeed is the scene of the movie as the feeling of regrets, achievements and pursuing a dream are all there for the audience to embrace around the emotions.

There are a lot of themes that Miyazaki touches upon in his final piece of work, some are better than others, but on a whole, it seems as though he wanted to fit in everything he needed to say and the result is a film that lacks a single core and in turn making it far less affecting. I personally enjoyed the dream within dream elements where it transcends beyond the boundaries and realities. It is also ironic to have a dream that can do what humans cannot, but at the same time being anime, it can also do what normal films cannot achieve.

All in all, “The Wind Rises” is not a bad film, but in terms of Miyazaki’s high standards and also being a final piece of jigsaw, it falls short. Perhaps I had lofty expectations of a creator that takes you back and beyond your realms of realism and childhood and dreams. “The Wind Rises” tries extremely hard to take us on that journey, but in between we stopped, before stop-starting again. There are moments that make the film good and the images and sceneries are undeniably attractive. However, as with Miyazaki’s body of work, this isn’t going to be a fairytale ending for the artist, but rather like a missing puzzle of a jigsaw, it somehow missed a vital corner. (Neo 2014)

I rated 6.5/10

Support our decade of film scholarship on Asian Cinema by buying Official DVD or Blu-ray release from our Store