There’s a new film by legendary Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki out in December. It’s called The Boy and the Heron, and it’s his once mysterious un-retirement movie. A decade ago he made what was supposed to be his swan song, The Wind Rises, but he eventually realized he was bored not making movies, so here we are. His films tend to be released in America with both its original audio and in star-studded English dubs. But the latter for his latest may be even more star-studded than usual. (Though you should of course seek out the Japanese-language version, but more on that in a bit.)
Per Variety, GKids, who have been distributing films by Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli in America for years, has tapped some big names. Robert Pattinson plays a mysterious grey heron who lures our 12-year-old hero (voice of You’s Luca Padovan), reeling from the death of his mother in the midst of the Second World War, into a fantastical and trippy alternate world. Christian Bale will play his kindly father, Florence Pugh one of the women he meets there, Mark Hamill his grand-uncle, who disappeared ages ago, and Gemma Chan as his aunt.
Oh, but there’s more. Dave Bautista will voice the “Parakeet King,” who leads a gang of deadly, knife-wielding (yet still cute) parakeets. And Willem Dafoe is typecast as “Noble Pelican.”
That’s a great voice cast and star power will surely lure lots of American moviegoers, and their kids, to see the latest classically hand-drawn, cel-animated Miyazaki wonder. That said, here’s why you should seek out the Japanese-language version: Miyazaki personally and laboriously oversees which Japanese actor voices which characters. He’s adamant about finding the best person to voice his very specific characters. The voice talent is as important to a Miyazaki film as all the mind-melting stuff he conjures onscreen. And that’s on top of seeing a Japanese movie about Japanese characters featuring Japanese vocal talents.
But hey, if you have to see The Boy and the Heron in a subtitle-less dub, you sure could do worse than doing so with Robert Pattinson and Christian Bale and Florence Pugh and freakin’ Willem Dafoe.
The Boy and the Heron will hit American theaters on December 8. You can watch the teaser trailer — with the original Japanese voice actors — in the video above.
(Via Variety)