SnoopyStyle
It's 1814 Edo, Japan. Tetsuzo is a famous painter. He lives with his daughter O-Ei. She also paints but he often critiques her work harshly. Zenjiro is a hanger-on, a former samurai who turned to painting. O-Ei hates Zenjiro's inferior work and ridicules him as Zen Zero. She often visits her blind half-sister O-Nao who lives with her mother and Tetsuzo rarely visits due to his aversion of the sick.This evokes a time and place. It paints two great characters. The plot is episodic in nature and I would like more in terms of plot development. I love the woman haunted by O-Ei's painting. There are great bits of a story. I don't know if O-Ei's character development is enough. I am intrigued by her visit to the brothel but it comes to nothing. In the end, she marries but it's left to a postscript text. The script needs a plot development rewrite. It paints a beautiful picture but the picture doesn't really move. Does she become a great artist? Does she find true love? Does sex release her artistry? Is she gay? Does death give her art new depths? There are so many questions but this movie is reluctant to answer them.
Ed-from-HI
"Miss Hokusai" is a beautifully rendered and even 'mystic' anime originating from manga-artist Hinako Sugiura becoming a full-length animated 2015 Film by Keiichi Hara spotlighting legendary Edo period artist Hokusai, famous for the strikingly powerful and iconic painting "The Great Wave off Kanagawa" This particular story 'Miss Hokusai' reveals the lesser known tale of Hokusai's amazingly gifted & equally artistic daughter 'O-Ei' who never received the recognition she richly deserved, positing that many of O-Ei's original artistic renderings became later attributed to her renowned father.From a purely visual-perspective the meticulous animation of 'Miss Hokusai' presents abundantly breathtaking artistic renderings and recreations of 'Hokusai' inspired Works, also evoking the rich imagery inherent to Classic Japanese Edo period-setting with all its sublime & ineffable-beauty.From the standpoint of storytelling 'Miss Hokusai' provides profound insights into the highly creative but also chaotic lifestyle of the obsessive artist, a Life filled with the endless search for unpredictable/ unexpected but authentic creative inspiration.There are also 'spiritual' (e.g. primarily Buddhist) elements introduced as the Story progresses which adds greatly to authenticity, providing additional insights about the culture (and belief-structure) inherent to the specific time & place in which O-Ei and her father Hokusai produced their timeless Works.'Miss Hokusai' embodies the rich combination of strikingly beautiful animation enhanced by an intriguing rumination reflecting on Edo-period Japanese culture replete with its deeply-spiritual qualities and ineffable contradictions, an anime film that is beautiful, unique and even enlightening.
Vetiver
American films are a shallow, inane mess. That's why people go see foreign films at art houses. They want to feel good about themselves, and they want to look good to others. Miss Hokusai probably isn't playing in theaters anymore. But if it was, it's a great place to take a date if you want to impress them with your amazing and elitist tastes.I'm not one for typical anime. And of the other anime-ish films that were big in America - Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, etc. - I guess I kind of liked them, but I'm not sure why, other than I'm supposed to like them, and it's good and right to like them. Agree, NPR crowd?Well. Miss Hokusai is a film critic's dream. As soon as I saw it playing at my local college town theatre, I already knew it got 100% from Metacritic and consistent red tomatoes on Rotten Tomatoes. Film critics' tastes are extremely predictable. The more pretentious and experimental a film, the more it merits 5 stars, or 10 stars, or whatever's the highest rating of X publication or website. Why Miss Hokusai gets rave reviews from critics:-It's Japanese anime-ish, and critics and TED lecture fans alike all salivate for those. -It has - gasp! - LBGT in there, and it's not even implied or subdued!!-I don't know what the f--- it's about, but it sure looks good!-Japanese Edo period, about famous artist/painter! Critics love artsiness. -Beautiful Japanese anime-ish characters! Critics appreciate different cultures. -Japan, Japan, oh how they love and adore Japan!-Gorgeous 19th-century Edo cityscape and scenery. Critics adore and appreciate cinematography, history, architecture, and the outdoors - a plus if it's a different culture!-And what is the film about again? I don't care, it seems experimental and cool, so I'll upvote it!Anyway, I'm guilty of thinking like critics, so I was pretty impressed with the film, and I enjoyed it. I'd hate to say this, but it really is way better than typical American films. Art-house elitism!
otaking241
While lacking in plot and character development--generally what most people look for in a film--Miss Hokusai is a lovely and wistful look into life in Edo, which was Tokyo before the Meiji Restoration of 1867. The film centers on the painter Hokusai, whose Great Wave off Kanagawa is probably the most well-known Japanese artwork, and his real-life daughter O-Ei, of whom little factual data remains. They live together in a squalid flat and are completely devoted to producing art, while Hokusai's wife and blind younger daughter live elsewhere. The film unfolds as a series of vignettes featuring well-known works by the artist, some of which the film posits may have been painted by his daughter. There is a visit to a brothel in Yoshiwara to see a geisha who has out-of-body experiences at night, dealing with a haunting caused by one of O-Ei's paintings, a ride on a boat where the great wave is reenacted, and various other scenes. Two subplots round out the film, one involving O-Ei's unrequited love for her father's disciple, and the other the younger daughter's worsening health and eventual death. The short film is capped with O-Ei telling how her life played out after the events and a text crawl at the end relating her own death. With the exception of the younger daughter's death no single plot line in the film is fully played out, which leaves something of a sour taste in the mouth. But the film is nonetheless enjoyable for its visual beauty and the window it grants into life in Edo. The scene where O-Ei follows the alarm to a fire was especially fascinating, the firefighting companies holding their standards, getting doused with water and tearing down the surrounding structure to prevent the fire from spreading. The character designs are somewhat simplistic, maybe even a bit crude, but they're deftly animated and with the exquisite backgrounds the team at Production I.G. have created another masterpiece visually. Worth watching, and if you're intrigued plan a visit to the Edo Tokyo museum in Tokyo for a more in-depth look at life in this fascinating time.
AD
