The Boy and the Heron - 4K Blu-ray Review

Movie
There’s a strange kinship between musicians and successful film director’s I’ve noticed. Both of them will have a great career over the their life, showcase the need (or want) to retire in style, but for some reason both will come out of retirement multiple times for “just one last ride”. I mean, we’ve all seen the “very lastest, never to be done again in your lifetime, end of an era” tour from artists like Kiss, Motley Crue, Cher, and even Bon Jovi. I’m not sure whether it’s a fascination with money, or simply they feel like they can’t give up and have more in the tank. But whatever the reasoning behind it, you can be almost assured that when a decades spanning artists announces retirement, you’re going to see at LEAST one more rodeo out of them.

Such is the tale with Studio Ghibli’s legendary Hayao Miyazaki, who told us in 1968, 92, 97, 2001, 2004, 2008 and 2013 that “this is my last film”. Once more the legendary director steps out to tale a personal story of longing and power, of giving up one’s hold on it, and going back to the real world with The Boy and the Heron. The story is going to be really difficult to summarize, as the “final” story is probably his most esoteric and surrealist yet. Taking elements of Howl’s Moving Castle, Spirited Away AND hints of The Wind Rises into a bizarre tale that thrives more on imagination of what happened, vs. what actually happens.

The Boy and the Heron starts off with one of the most horrific moments in Japanese history, with young Mahito Maki watching his mother die in a fireball of death during an allied bombing run. A year later his father has remarried to his aunt (the younger sister of his mother) and the 3 are living in the countryside with poor Mahito trying to reconcile his new “mother”, as well as the anger towards his father for “betraying” his birth mother. The young lad spends most of his time self inflicting wounds for pity, as well as exploring the ramshackle ruins of his crazed grand uncle (who was rumored to have gone mad and disappeared decades ago).

However, his life takes a magical (and bizarre) turn when a gray Heron starts speaking to him, and luring him to the old ruins of his grand uncle’s tower with sweet sweet lies about his mother being alive “on the other side”. Knowing full well it has to be a trap, he stays away from the ruins until his new mother, Natsuko, is captured by the Gray Heron, forcing the boy’s hand in going across to the other side to rescue her. On the other side of the veil Mahito runs into a bizarre world where hungry parakeets attempt to eat him, his grand uncle is still alive trying to keep this mystical world alive, and a mysterious fire princess named Himi knows a bit more than she’s letting on about Mahito and his life. Now he has to find Natsuko and bring her back to the world of the living before he’s taken as well, and hopefully finds out just what this strange world really is in the meantime.

I have mixed feelings about The Boy and the Heron. I’m a HUUUUUUGE (bigly) fan of Hayao Miyazaki’s work, and I have no problem with the more esoteric and surrealist tendencies of the director, but The Boy and the Heron is almost undecipherable from a story line point of view. It’s not like you can’t understand the happenings of the film, but the happenings and what they MEAN seem almost disconnected. The film feels like a drug fueled fever dream , delving almost into Masaaki Yuasa bizarre at times. However, I was talking with another fan of the man online and he suggested I look at the story for what it MIGHT be about, vs. what we’re seeing on screen, and I have to say it sort of makes sense. The film seems to delve into very personal themes for Miyazaki here, mirroring his time as the lead director of Studio Ghibli, as well as commentary on leaving a legacy for those after him. My personal gut feeling is that this film is Miyazaki’s expression of love for his own son, as well as a personal outlet for how he feels handing off his empire to someone else. Especially since he has “retired” nearly half a dozen times over the last 40 years.

That being said, casual viewers will have a difficult time with the film’s pacing and story, wondering if the legendary director has decided to pick up a drug habit between this and the last film in his arsenal. But I also understand why it has such a cult following as well. The film is a layer inside a layer, cutting deep into the peel of the onion of Miyazaki’s life, allowing the viewer to imaging what he’s pouring out here. But the flip side of that is that it is his most inaccessible film yet to the casual viewer, and that sort of frustrates even me. I enjoyed what I say, and I LOVED being able to do the “what if” game with the mysterious symbolism strewn throughout the gorgeous looking animation, but at the same time it’s a rather bizarre watch.



Rating:

Rated PG-13 for some violent content/bloody images and smoking.




4K Video: Video:

One thing Studio Ghibli and Shout! Studios really do well is the video encodes for their animated films. Very rarely am I disappointed with one of their encodes, and this is no different. In typical Miyazaki fashion, The Boy and the Heron is an utterly gorgeous looking anime. Colors are bright and vivid, with rich primaries, lovely soft pastels and a nuanced variety of landscapes that change shades and tones and textures in comparison to the other. The 4K UHD is a solid upgrade over the near perfect 1080p disc as well. Fine details are impressive all the way around. I didn’t notice any banding or other artifacting, AND the black levels are disgustingly deep and inky. My only complaint is that some of the scenes lacked a little bit of detail and felt “softer” when looking at them compared to some of the more intricately draw scenes. All in all, this is a top notch encode and about 1 nose hair away from being perfect.








Audio:

Shout! Studios provides the same Dolby Atmos pair on both 4K UHD and Blu-ray, with an English and a Japanese dub in the same object oriented format. If you’ve read my reviews before then you know that I’m a massive “subs over dubs” guy when it comes to my anime, but even I have to admit that they did a stellar job with the English dub. Maybe it was because this was a legendary director coming out of retirement, but it is one of the biggest and most expensive dubs of all time with this ensemble casting. Needless to say I slightly prefer the Japanese track (which may be a slight bias), but the English dub is right on it’s heels for sure. And that almost pains me to say.

The audio mix itself is superb, with an incredible Atmos track that makes great use of the surrounds and bass channel when Mahito goes to the other world. The rushing of waters, the fluttering of little monsters floating above the listening position, the roar of flames as Himi attacks the pelicans. This is one encompassing mix that literally puts the listener right into the heart of the action. The bass is tight and punchy, and the effects well balanced with the rest of the track. It isn’t wildly showy in many ways, but what it does, it does flawlessly. An absolutely perfect auditory experience.







Extras:

• Feature-Length Storyboards
• Interview with Composer Joe Hisaishi
• Interview with Producer Toshio Suzuki
• Interview with Supervising Animator Takeshi Honda
• Drawing with Takeshi Honda
• "Spinning Globe" Music Video
• Teasers & Trailers














As I said above, The Boy and the Heron is a film that will appeal DIRECTLY to long time Miyazaki fans, and also act as a barrier for the casual viewers. It’s wonderfully animated film with hints of deeper messaging layered through an allegorical tale of power and intrigue. The English Dub is something I USUALLY ignore being a purist, but the star studded cast is absolutely breath taking, giving us an amazing Dub that even I have to begrudgingly admit is pretty stellar. The 4K UHD disc from Shout!/Studio Ghibli (Shout! Studios is simply the distributor for Ghibli/Gkids) is fantastic on the audio/vidoe front, and the extras (while moderate) are still rather satisfying. Check it out if you’re even remotely a Miyazaki fan.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Christian Bale, Dave Bautista, Gemma Chan, Willem Dafoe, Mark Hamill, Robert Pattinson, Florence Pugh
Directed by: Hayao Miyazaki
Written by: Hayao Miyazaki
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 HEVC
Audio: Japanese: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), English Dolby Atmos, English DVS, Spanish DD 5.1
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, Spanish
Studio: Shout! Studios
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 123 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: July 9th, 2024

tripplej said:

Thanks for the review. Few friends of mine loved it or hated it. For those that hated it, they were completly lost and after the movie ended, still had no idea what they saw!

I guess, this will be a movie that has to be watched a few times to get the hidden stuff to help tie it all together.

I will check this one out.

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yeah, I can totally understand that. My first viewing was "what the heck did I just watch?" with the wife. it's definitely a VERY personal film for Miyazaki himself and kind of a vanity project. If you're a Miyazaki fan and have seen the documentary about him it makes a lot more sense as you exptrapolate the meaning from the visuals... but for normies it is probably the most surrealist Studio Ghibli film to date. As I mentioned in the review, it hearkens more to Masaki Yuasa in terms of "bizarre" if you know what I mean, rather than standard Miyazaki

tripplej said:

I finally saw this movie and I can see the confusion. Not your typical story for sure. The main theme of letting go and accepting/moving forward is there but the way, the film portrays that is indeed confusing! Definately, one of those films that require multiple viewings!

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oh yeah, it's definitely different than Miyazaki's normal story telling