Kurumiwari ningyô

This is one of the all-time coolest movies I've ever seen. It may be quite bizzare, but the prominent themes of true love and sacrifice totally outweigh the weirdness, which actually just adds to the uniqueness of this film. For a fairly old movie, it's very well done. I definitely recommend this to anyone who has an extra moment to watch an excellent film.

Christopher Lee is mesmerizing as Uncle Drosselmeyer- and Watchmaker, the puppeteer, the minstrel... and he sings too! He's an incredible voice actor and he's complimented very well by a still very young Melissa Gilbert as Clara. The film is crafted most artistically... more so than other traditional stop-animation puppets. Nutcracker Fantasy has beautiful photography... use of lighting, color, sets... very complicated and intricate dolls telling the story... The best scenes are the beginning showing the Ragman turning awake little children into mice and stuffing them in his bag... and the first dialogues between Clara and Drosselmeyer. Although all this is great, I am very disappointed with the 70s techno-pop music mixed in with the original Tchaikovsky. The soundtrack is hideous and almost wrecks many of the scenes... that and the cuts of live ballet dancers which are unnecessary. I would like to see a re-cut of this film and have it available on DVD. If it is cleaned up a bit editting-wise and with the original Tchaikovsky restored... wow this would be totally awesome!!!!!

I haven't seen this movie in maybe 18 years, but I've been searching for it all over the internet for a while now, and finally came across it tonight! I watched this movie over and over! I'm going to purchase it soon and I cannot wait. I loved the voices, the animation, the color. It was all so magical to me. I cannot wait to see it again! It's a wonderful take on "The Nutcracker Suite," a story everyone should be familiar with. I use to think it was a Rankin/Bass movie, just because it is similar to Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and all other movies like that. I only just found out it's a Japanese film. I can't say whether other people would appreciate this movie, kids would. I think you have to be young to watch it, it would be so mysterious!

I'm 16, and i remember seeing this film when i was a little kid, my parents had a copy, i loved this film! the ragman scared the living daylights out of me! and the way the puppets moved was really freaky, lol. but this film, has become one of the most rarest films in the world now! hard to come by, especially in england. i managed to find a copy in dallas, and ordered it the other day. basically the story is of a girl called clara who gets a nutcracker doll from her uncle drosselmeyer (tick tock tee, lol) and she gets some sort of fever, and starts hallucinating several different things, including the doll doing battle with mice, yay! lol. anyway, this film is really really really really great, and should you ever get a chance to watch it, WATCH IT! you will definitely not be disappointed.

The stop-motion animation by Sanrio Studios is really lovely in "Nutcracker Fantasy" and reminds me a lot of the Rankin-Bass specials, though the characters are even prettier and more well animated. That being said, the story itself is confusing and I cannot see most children enjoying or even understanding it. I know I struggled to figure out the story.

Much of the problem is that many of the characters are from "The Nutcracker" but the story itself isn't. Instead, it's just baffling. My advice is that if you do watch it, bring up the Wikipedia article for this animation and read along as you watch. Otherwise, you're likely to just feel baffled as I did.