Princess from the Moon (1987)

[o.supreme]

greetings all,

I am going to preface this review as it is past midnight so I apologize for any spelling errors.

So I just finished watching this film with my wife on Hulu. It was an interesting story which adds to the diversity of japanese story telling especially in terms of mythology and feudal Japan. The spfx were pretty good, although the scene with the dragon was very short as anticipated. All the scenes at the end with the space ships were well done, although it had a very "close encounters" feel to it.

The kicker howeve would have to be the end song. Peter Cetera of "Chicago" fame doing a song that sounds almost Identitcal to "Your My Inspiration", except it was called "Stay with me" (referring to the title characters inevitble return home from whence she came). This is odd because this is the nd Toho film I have seen in the last month whichhad a famous American Muscician do asong of similiar tune for a Japanese movie. The other was Yamato in which Steven Tyler did a song called " Love Gives" which is pretty much Nazareth's "love hurts" with different lyrics

To many I can see how the film might feel dry or boring, but if you want to expand your horizons of Toho film watching beyond that of just Kaiju, this would be a good film to watch

[o.supreme]

No that wasn't in the movie. In the beginning when the pod with the alien first crashes and takes the form of the 5 year old girl who had died, her eyes are blue and she almost instantly ages from infancy-5years old. She also posseses the ability to heal herself, thats about it

[Rody]

That's one movie I can check off of my "To Watch" list.

I wasn't sure what to expect from Princess From the Moon, but thankfully I wasn't disappointed. This movie isn't outstanding, but it's well put together and made for a pleasant watch.

The story has a very fairy-tale quality to it, which isn't surprising considering the source material (it was based off of a Japanese fairy tale, was it not?). On the positive side, this lends an appropriate mystical atmosphere to the film, and the plot is easy to follow. On the negative side, the movie goes at a rather slow pace (not quite too slow for me, but maybe others will disagree), the characters are rather static, and the plot developments are somewhat predictable.
Still, the actors all gave good effort in their parts. I was pleasantly surprised to see Megumi Odaka have a role in the film. Her character doesn't have a major role, but she at least has more presence than she did as Miki in most of the '90's Godzilla films. I don't think I recognized anyone else in the movie, so it was nice to have at least one familiar face (which is sort of an ironic statement, since Princess From the Moon was actually her first movie).
The music and the effects both were good, substantially supporting the film when necessary. The dragon, unfortunately, only appeared for a couple of minutes, and was filmed in a fashion to be relatively obscured the whole time; but it looked good nevertheless. Plus, if you feel cheated out on that, you at least get a spaceship at the end - THAT was a sight for sore eyes!

Overall, Princess From the Moon is a good movie. It isn't groundbreaking by any means, but if you don't expect any more than a couple of hours of old-fashioned fantasy, you ought to enjoy the film.
6/10.

[Arbok]

It's an okay film. It does, in some ways, feel like a belated passing of the torch from the Showa era to the Heisei era, having quite a few familiar faces in the film from the 1980's and earlier. Special effects range from good to meh, with the Dragon not exactly being a highlight in the SFX department (hard to imagine an entire film being based around that prop for the scrapped Nessie film).

Still, would like to get an official, home video release for this in the US at some point in time... at least we have it on streaming services to use.

[Terasawa]

I don't know what the budget for this film was, but it must have been a lot more than any other 80s or 90s Toho tokusatsu. It's wonderfully photographed too, but otherwise I don't think there's much to recommend it. Granted, I've only seen the (awful) international version, though I do have a nice copy of the Japanese version.

[Arbok]

I don't know what the budget for this film was, but it must have been a lot more than any other 80s or 90s Toho tokusatsu.

Kon Ichikawa was a fairly big name director in Japan, and him doing a special effects film in general is pretty abnormal versus his normal career work... but yeah I would wager that the budget on this was higher than the norm for that decade. Not sure I would say it was higher than the normal Godzilla fare, but I haven't been able to find anything that states the budget of the 1987 film to be sure.

[Tohosaurus]

Thank you Hulu! Finally got to see this film, which to me seems sort of like Japan's Close Encounters of the Third Kind and it looks like another poster thought something similar. While it's talkier and slower than what some might like, it's an interesting fairy tale-ish sort of story (sending three potential grooms out on an adventure, etc), which yet another poster mentioned. Apparently I bring nothing new to the discussion. Visually it's quite good as with other 80s Toho special effects films. Sets, costumes, the UFO's detail, etc. Much better UFO, for example, than what we saw in later Godzilla films like G2K or GFW. The sea dragon is the only notable effects weak point, but ultimately it's only major issue is that I could do with probably 10+ minutes trimmed from the final film or find some way to jazz up the middle of the film that sags a bit. Maybe show more of the three men on their adventure, or would that lose the film's focus too much? The final act is by far the best part of the movie so if anything it ends on a high note.
7/10

I don't know what the budget for this film was, but it must have been a lot more than any other 80s or 90s Toho tokusatsu. It's wonderfully photographed too, but otherwise I don't think there's much to recommend it. Granted, I've only seen the (awful) international version, though I do have a nice copy of the Japanese version.

According to the main site, Princess from the Moon's budget was more than that of both 80s Godzilla movies combined.

[Arbok]

I don't know what the budget for this film was, but it must have been a lot more than any other 80s or 90s Toho tokusatsu. It's wonderfully photographed too, but otherwise I don't think there's much to recommend it. Granted, I've only seen the (awful) international version, though I do have a nice copy of the Japanese version.

According to the main site, Princess from the Moon's budget was more than that of both 80s Godzilla movies combined.

Yep, eating all kinds of crow as I made the statement it probably wasn't at the level of the later day Godzilla films, but was proven wrong. It was one of the most expensive Japanese films of its day.

As a side note, if anyone loves this film, I would suggest checking out The Tale of Princess Kaguya. It's an Anime version of the story, and an excellent film overall.

[Space Hunter M]

Y'know, Eiji Tsuburaya had plans to make a live action version of the Kaguya fable way back in 1962, but IIRC King Kong vs. Godzilla overruled that idea at the studio.

[LegendZilla]

Regarding the "Dragon" in the film, I'd say it's about time someone added a description to the creature in its profile. But since that's not going to happen anytime soon, would any of you bother to explain what exactly does the critter do in the movie?

[M.o.g.u.e.r.a14]

Thank you Hulu! Finally got to see this film, which to me seems sort of like Japan's Close Encounters of the Third Kind and it looks like another poster thought something similar. While it's talkier and slower than what some might like, it's an interesting fairy tale-ish sort of story (sending three potential grooms out on an adventure, etc), which yet another poster mentioned. Apparently I bring nothing new to the discussion. Visually it's quite good as with other 80s Toho special effects films. Sets, costumes, the UFO's detail, etc. Much better UFO, for example, than what we saw in later Godzilla films like G2K or GFW. The sea dragon is the only notable effects weak point, but ultimately it's only major issue is that I could do with probably 10+ minutes trimmed from the final film or find some way to jazz up the middle of the film that sags a bit. Maybe show more of the three men on their adventure, or would that lose the film's focus too much? The final act is by far the best part of the movie so if anything it ends on a high note.
7/10

I don't know what the budget for this film was, but it must have been a lot more than any other 80s or 90s Toho tokusatsu. It's wonderfully photographed too, but otherwise I don't think there's much to recommend it. Granted, I've only seen the (awful) international version, though I do have a nice copy of the Japanese version.

According to the main site, Princess from the Moon's budget was more than that of both 80s Godzilla movies combined.

Her budget is

*puts on sunglasses*

out of this world.

[Tohosaurus]

Regarding the Dragon in the film, I'd say it's about time someone added a description to the creature in its profile. But since that's not going to happen anytime soon, would any of you bother to explain what exactly does the critter do in the movie?

Really not much. It kinda attacks the ship of one of the three men that want to marry Kaya. I mean the entire scene is probably, what, two minutes? Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but it's quite brief and not integral to the story.

[Arbok]

Regarding the Dragon in the film, I'd say it's about time someone added a description to the creature in its profile. But since that's not going to happen anytime soon, would any of you bother to explain what exactly does the critter do in the movie?

Really not much. It kinda attacks the ship of one of the three men that want to marry Kaya. I mean the entire scene is probably, what, two minutes? Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but it's quite brief and not integral to the story.

Yeah, that about sums it up. It's fairly random, not all that convincing, and doesn't show up in the The Tale of Princess Kaguya version of the tale.