Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2140 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-01-30
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Formats: Animated, Dubbed, PAL
• Original language: Japanese
• Dubbed in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 93 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Porco Rosso (The Crimson Pig, 1992) ranks as Hayao Miyazaki's oddest film: a bittersweet period adventure about a dashing pilot who has somehow been turned into a pig. Miyazaki once said, "Initially, it was supposed to be a 45-minute film for tired businessmen to watch on long airplane flights... Why kids love it is a mystery to me."

The early 1930s setting enabled Miyazaki to focus on the old airplanes he loves, and the film boasts complex and extremely effective aerial stunts and dogfights. In the new English dub from Disney, Michael Keaton as Porco delivers lines like "All middle-aged men are pigs" with appropriate cynicism, but his voice may be too familiar for some Miyazaki fans. Susan Egan makes a curiously distant Gina, the thrice-widowed hotel owner bound to Porco by years of friendship; Kimberly Williams is more effective as the irrepressible young engineer Fio. Porco Rosso may be an odd film, but Miyazaki's directorial imagination never flags.-- Charles Solomon

Synopsis
From the renowned director of 'My Neighbour Totoro' and 'Princess Mononoke' comes this period, fantasy anime about an Italian, ace WWI pilot who undergoes a transformation to become Porco Rosso, part man, part pig, after witnessing the deaths of other pilots in his last air battle. Under this spell, Porco Rosso survives by taking odd jobs, and finds himself in one comic situation after another as he romances women, rescues the innocent, and looks for a way out of the porcine spell.

Customer Reviews

Masterpiece from the magical Studio Ghibli.
Porco Rosso is a film that I have fond memories of, having first seen it during the early half of the mid-nineties as part of a Sky Movies double alongside Miyazaki's more acknowledged early masterpiece My Neighbour Totoro. Totoro is a fantastic film, one that can be enjoyed by an audience of any age, but it is the sublime Porco Rosso that always had the greater resonance for me, and as a result, is the film that I have returned to again and again over the course of the last decade.

The story is more complicated than some of Miyazaki's previous (or indeed, later) works, with the narrative unfolding around our titular central character, an Italian First World War fighter pilot (literally) cursed with the features of a pig, now living as a freelance bounty hunter chasing "air pirates" in the Adriatic Sea!! The reason why Porco has been cursed is never fully explained, with Miyazaki leaving only the vaguest suggestion of clues and hints before getting on with the more serious story at hand. Here, unlike great films such as Kiki's Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, Miyazaki takes a story that is rooted in a recognisable historical period, choosing to focus on the era between the first and second world wars, the rise of Fascism and the great depression (which is here referenced on separate occasions). Added to this, we also have notions of romance (with Porco's relationship with hotel/club owner Gina perhaps offering a sense of redemption), the central adventure story involving Porco and the "air pirates", as well as feuds and rivalries (chiefly between Porco and the chauvinistic American pilot Curtis) and even a father/mentor type relationship to be found between Porco and his young aide Fio.

The film moves along at a great pace, offering moments of jaw-dropping action/animation and some wonderfully rendered character interaction. As with all the films from the Studio Ghibli production house, the animation here is staggering throughout, with Miyazaki demonstrating an intuitive grasp of how to capture, not only the dizzying scenes of action and mid-air acrobatics, but also the dramatic scenes too. The colours are strong and capture the feeling of time and the essence of the place and period, whilst the overall attention to character depth and detail goes great lengths towards cementing the backdrop of the story and also the believability of the characters. Like the most recent Miyazaki/Ghibli production, Howl's Moving Castle, Porco Rosso is a film that will appeal to children, but will also offer deeper themes that can be enjoyed and appreciated by adults and adolescents. The historical and political aspects for example are well handled, offering a further arc to the main story, without getting in the way of the action or the characters.

In this respect, Porco Rosso could very easily be considered a perfect film (for me at least), with several of the plot strands (amongst them the delicate romance between Porco and Gina, which seems positively pregnant with a subtle sense of sadness, as well as the different relationships that Porco has with Fio and Curtis) reaching a real emotional peak, whilst even managing to remain in my thoughts for the best part of a decade!! The film might lack an obvious sense of closure, leaving many aspects of Porco's past-life completely vague, but for me, this simply created a sense of mystique and a reason to see the film again!!! Porco Rosso is a magical film, and alongside works like My Neighbour Totoro, Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle, is a masterpiece from the always magnificent Studio Ghibli.

One of the greats
It is the 1920's, and the Adriatic is plagued by sky-pirates, terrorising shipping in souped-up seaplanes. Facing off against them is the greatest pilot of them all - the mercenary known as Porco Rosso: The Crimson Pig.
This is a story of heroism, comedy, love and redemption, and the animators get more conviction out of an animated pig than many real-life actors can manage. Set against the rise of fascism in post-Great War Italy, Porco Rosso offers a story about why someone would adandon their humanity, and what it takes for them to get it back, in the middle of the most beautifully animated sequences of flight I've ever seen. Miyazaki loves his flight sequences, and it is this film which showwcase his love and skill more than any other he has done.
Coupled with a cast of well-drawn supporting characters and Ghibli's refusal to view heroes or villains as anything other than people with motivations and flaws, Porco Rosso is as skillful a piece of filmmaking as you're likely to see.
For my money, this is Studio Ghibli's best film, which means that it is one of the best anime films ever produced. You'll love it, and so will your friends and any children you have about the place.

An often overlooked gem
If you've seen Studio Ghibli films such as Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle or My Neighbour Totoro, you may be slightly surprised by Porco Rosso. Our cursed hero, mysteriously transformed into a pig, lives as an exiled bounty hunter after leaving the 1920's Italian Air Force due to his anti-fascist beliefs. Dealing with themes of love and loss, Rosso fights pirates, smokes and punches his way through the film, which lacks the storybook, child-like themes seen in other Ghibli films. However, much license is taken with the historical setting, and the scenes of dog fights and the air pirates manages to elaborate the adriatic sea to a sight more than big enough to accommodate "the Scarlet Pig" and his airborne adversaries. The film could be enjoyed by older children, but some of the violence, slower scenes and historic details certainly aims this towards the older crowd rather than Ghibli's more family-oriented output. Truly touching, with a fantastic lead character and a strong supporting cast of characters, this film is a must watch and manages to present a more mature storyline whilst maintaining some of the wonder of My Neighbour Totoro and Hayao Miyazaki's other creations.