Ghibli’s Isao Takahata new film has been revealed
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Studio Ghibli’s next project will be based on one of the oldest surviving Japanese folktales: Taketori Monogatari, aka The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. Isao Takahata will direct, for the first time in a decade.
The classic story, dating from the tenth century, involves the mysterious golden-haired beauty Kaguya-hime (“Radiant Night Princess”), found as a baby in a glowing bamboo plant, and revealed to have come from The Capital of the Moon, either as a banishment, or as a war-refugee, depending on which version you read. She rebuffs a number of suitors, including Mikado, the Emperor of Japan (who gives up immortality for her), and eventually returns to the Moon.
Unsurprisingly, given its stature in Japanese culture (one theory has it that Mount Fuji derives its name from the story) it’s been filmed before, not least in Kon Ichikawa’s 1987 version starring Toshiro Mifune, but it’s Ghibli’s first traditional folk tale, and as such is a truly ravishing prospect.
