The Deer King

I've read lots of comments saying it had an unfinished plot but if you get past the song that plays at the end you get to see what everyone's doing in the future and I think it wraps up the story wonderfully. The movie was the perfect length for the plot, any shorter and it wouldn't have made any sense. I think the film did a great job at slowly and steadily guiding the viewer through the story, the emotions conveyed through the art music and expressions told more of the story than the dialogue and I love that. Nearly all the characters were written wonderfully and saw development, something rare in movies. Overall beautiful and I loved it.

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 character and animation style remembers the movies from studio Ghibli, it's very well animated, the art is a masterpiece, if is only for the art and the animation, 10/10 stars for it. But the story unfortunately is boring, the show starts good, the first act gives you a lot of elements to continue watching the story, but after it the story get rushed and confusing in some parts. It was hard to not sleep while watching it, and the end was very unexpected and very japanese-like storytelling (I think a lot of people won't be full pleased with this kind of ending).

Overall, it's just a pity to see so much talent and resource wasted in producing a such boring story, I only recommend this movie for people who just enjoy seeing good art, because the story isn't much interesting and you have good chance in falling sleeping while watching it.

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.

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.