Operetta tanuki goten (2005)

Director:

Seijun Suzuki

Writer:

Yoshio Urasawa (writer)

Release Date:

28 May 2005 (Japan)

Genre:

Comedy | Fantasy | Musical | Romance

Plot:

Amechiyo (The banished prince) falls in love with Tanukihime (a princess of raccoon dog disguised to human). This is an Operetta which includes comedy, singing and dancing, and a love story.

Plot Keywords:

Frog | Assassin | Raccoon | Love | Dancing

Awards:

5 wins

Cast

Ziyi Zhang	...	Tanukihime
Jô Odagiri	...	Amechiyo
Hiroko Yakushimaru	...	Ohagi no tsubone
Mikijiro Hira	...	Azuchi Momoyama
Taro Yamamoto
Gentaro Takahashi
Saori Yuki
Miwako Ichikawa
Hibari Misora	...	CG appearance
Eisuke Sasai
Papaiya Suzuki
Taro Nanshu
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Federico Aletta	...	Nan-bannjin (painter)

Also Known As:

Princess Raccoon (Hong Kong: English title) (International: English title) (UK)

Runtime:

Japan:111 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese | Mandarin

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

South Korea:15 | UK:PG

Company:

Ogura Jimusyo Co.

Trivia:

Ziyi Zhang spent half a month in Japan training in dance and voice. While her speaking part is in Chinese, she sings in both Chinese and Japanese.

It's not bad because it's different. It's just bad.

Weird with unnecessary singing and backdrops. Randomly much of the action will occur on stage giving the feeling of an opera performance. None of that explains why this is such a bad film.

It's the impression that either not enough rehearsal took place or that no experienced choreographer was available. The acting is flat. Even the sparkling Ziyi Zhang looks like she's just waiting for her next movement or line. You may notice the trivia on this site stating that she spent half a month in Japan learning to sign and dance. Read that again as 2 weeks and things begin to make sense. Even worse are the little kids who seem to be looking at their parents at the back of the studio rather than at the camera.

The cheap and cheerful sfx are just cheap and cheap. The editing is staccato chops peppered with slices of just nothing that adds to anything except annoyance. Just imagine all the silly dance scenes from the recent Zatoichi - particularly the closing routine - performed by your local high school drama club with one famous actress who speaks in another language (but you get her in simply because she's so good normally despite being unsuitable), recorded on a cheap camera and then edited into three times its length in no artful order.