The Wind Rises

The Wind Rises Information

is a 2013 Japanese animated historical fantasy adventure film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, and adapted from his own manga of the same name which was loosely based on the short story The Wind Has Risen by Tatsuo Hori, a writer, poet and translator from mid-20th century (Showa period) Japan. Kaze Tachinu is a fictionalized biography of Jiro Horikoshi, designer of the Mitsubishi A5M and its successor, the Mitsubishi A6M Zero; both aircraft were used by the Empire of Japan during World War II.

Miyazaki announced that the film was going to be his last, however, he took back his statement later on. The film was released by Toho on July 20, 2013, in Japan, and was released by Touchstone Pictures in North America, first with a limited release on February 21, 2014, then a wide release on February 28, 2014.

The Wind Rises was the highest-grossing Japanese film in Japan in 2013 and received critical acclaim from film critics. It won and was nominated for several awards, including nominations for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year.

Plot

Jiro Horikoshi, a young boy living in a provincial town, has a dream about climbing up onto his roof and flying away in a bird-like airplane, while wearing aviator goggles. After a while, a large, monstrous ship emerges from the clouds, and drops some anthropomorphic bombs on him. His plane is destroyed, and he plummets to the ground, then wakes up. Borrowing an English-language aviation magazine, he diligently studies it with an English dictionary, then has another dream where he meets Caproni, an Italian plane designer. Caproni is surprised that a Japanese boy has intruded in what he thought was his own dream, then realizes that airplanes are a shared dream they both have. Caproni tells Jiro that he can't fly a plane with glasses, but that building planes is better than flying them. Jiro wakes up and decides he will build planes.

Years later, Jiro is at university to study engineering. On traveling back to Tokyo from a holiday, he meets a young girl named Naoko, who is traveling with her maid. At this time, the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 hits, which stops the train and causes Naoko's maid to break her leg. Jiro delivers Naoko and her maid to Naoko's family, then walks away without giving his name. He arrives at his university and fights to save engineering books as Caproni's voice cheers him on.

Jiro begins working at an airplane manufacturer, assigned to a fighter design team. Their project ends in failure, with the company losing the design contract to a rival company. With no immediate projects to take on, he is sent to Germany to do technical research and to obtain a production license for a Junkers aircraft. He argues with German soldiers and witnesses a night raid by German secret police. During the journey, he again dreams of Caproni, who asks him, "Do you prefer a world with pyramids, or with no pyramids?".

Some years later, he is promoted to chief designer for a fighter plane competition sponsored by the Navy, which ends in a failure. Disappointed, Jiro visits a summer resort where he runs into Naoko again; they are engaged soon after. A German man privately critical of Adolf Hitler assists the romance before fleeing a feared arrest by Japanese authorities. Naoko is afflicted with tuberculosis, and refuses to marry until she recovers.

After some months, Jiro is assigned again as chief designer for another Navy competition, living at his supervisor's home to evade unwanted police attention. At the same time, Naoko is recuperating in an alpine sanatorium, but she cannot bear being apart from Jiro and resolves to return and marry him. Jiro's hosts perform an impromptu traditional wedding. Jiro's sister complains that his marriage to Naoko will end badly, as, having become a doctor, she is well aware of the incurable nature of tuberculosis. Jiro counters with the argument that every day is precious to Naoko and that what he does, he does for her.

Even though Naoko's health continues to deteriorate, she and Jiro enjoy their life together, the one lending strength to the other, right up to the day of the test flight of the prototype of what would become his first successful aircraft, the Mitsubishi A5M. On that day, after Jiro leaves for the factory, Naoko informs the company housing manager's wife that she feels strong enough to take a walk. Her departure is witnessed by Jiro's sister, who fears that this represents a desire on Naoko's part to spare Jiro the horror of her final dissolution in the coils of the disease "? a fear which is borne out in three letters which Naoko leaves for her husband, family, and friends. At the test site, Jiro is interrupted by a burst of wind "? seemingly implying that his wife has died.

The film ends in a dream sequence with Jiro emerging from the horror of war, feeling regret for his inventions and the deaths they caused. Caproni tells him his dreams were nonetheless realized. Naoko appears in this dream one last time, exhorting her husband to live on in the trust she has in him.

Cast

Original Japanese cast

Hideaki Anno as Jiro Horikoshi
Miori Takimoto as Naoko Satomi
Hidetoshi Nishijima as Honjo
Masahiko Nishimura as Kurokawa
Stephen Alpert as Castorp
Morio Kazama as Satomi
Keiko Takeshita as Jiro's Mother
Mirai Shida as Kayo Horikoshi
Jun Kunimura as Hattori
Shinobu Otake as Mrs. Kurokawa
Nomura Mansai as Giovanni Battista Caproni

English dub cast

Joseph Gordon-Levitt "? Jiro Horikoshi
Emily Blunt "? Naoko Satomi
John Krasinski "? Honjo
Martin Short "? Kurokawa
Werner Herzog "? Castorp
William H. Macy "? Satomi
Darren Criss "? Katayama
Mae Whitman "? Kayo
Mandy Patinkin "? Hattori
Jennifer Grey "? Mrs. Kurokawa
Stanley Tucci "? Giovanni Battista Caproni
Elijah Wood "? Sone
Ronan Farrow "? Mitsubishi Employee
Zach Callison "? Young Jir

Production

The Wind Rises is directed by Hayao Miyazaki, whose previous works include notable films such as My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away. It is the first film that Miyazaki has solely directed in five years; his last work was the 2008 film Ponyo. After Ponyo, Miyazaki wanted his next to film be Ponyo 2 but producer Toshio Suzuki convinced him to make The Wind Rises instead. This film is based on a manga by Hayao Miyazaki, which was serialized in the monthly magazine Model Graphix in 2009. The story of the manga is in turn loosely based on Tatsuo Hori's short novel "The Wind Has Risen", written in 1936-1937. Although the story in the film follows the historical account of Horikoshi's aircraft development chronologically, the rendition of his private life is entirely fictional.

Miyazaki was inspired to make the film after reading this quote from Horikoshi: "All I wanted to do was to make something beautiful."

The singer-songwriter Yumi Matsutoya's 1973 song is used as the film's theme song. The protagonist Jir? Horikoshi is voiced by Hideaki Anno.

Release

The Wind Rises was to be released simultaneously with The Tale of Princess Kaguya, another Studio Ghibli film by Isao Takahata, in Japan in mid-2013. This would have been the first time that the works of the two directors were released together since the release of the films My Neighbor Totoro and Grave of the Fireflies in 1988. In the event, Kaguya-hime was delayed until 23 November 2013. The Wind Rises was released on July 20, 2013.

The film played in competition at the 70th Venice International Film Festival. It had its official North American premiere at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, although a sneak preview of the film was presented earlier at the 2013 Telluride Film Festival (the film screened outside the official program).

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures distributed the film in North America through its Touchstone Pictures label. The film's English dubbing was directed by Gary Rydstrom. Disney held a one-week release window in the Los Angeles theatrical circuit for the film beginning on November 8, 2013, so that it could qualify for Academy Awards consideration. The film was released theatrically on February 21, 2014, in select cities, with wide release on February 28. The film will be released in the U.K. on May 9, 2014 with distribution by StudioCanal.

Reception

Box office

The film grossed 11.6 billion (US$113 million) at the Japanese box office, becoming the highest grossing film in Japan in 2013.

Critical response

The Wind Rises received critical acclaim from film critics; Rotten Tomatoes sampled 123 reviews and judged 88% of them to be positive, giving the film a "Certified Fresh" rating. The consensus states: "The Wind Rises is a fittingly bittersweet swan song for director Hayao Miyazaki.". Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score, rated the film an 83/100 based on 39 reviews, citing "universal acclaim".

Film critic David Ehrlich rated the film 9.7/10 and called the film, "Perhaps the greatest animated film ever made." Ehrlich further writes, "While initially jarring, Miyazaki"?s unapologetic deviations from fact help "The Wind Rises"? to transcend the linearity of its expected structure, the film eventually revealing itself to be less of a biopic than it is a devastatingly honest lament for the corruption of beauty, and how invariably pathetic the human response to that loss must be. Miyazaki"?s films are often preoccupied with absence, the value of things left behind and how the ghosts of beautiful things are traced onto our memories like the shadows of a nuclear fallout, and "The Wind Rises"? looks back as only a culminating work can."

The Japan Times gave the film a 3 1/2 stars out of 5, and states "A visually sumptuous celebration of an unspoiled prewar Japan." In a review for The Asia-Pacific Journal, Matthew Penney wrote "What Miyazaki offers is a layered look at how Horikoshi's passion for flight was captured by capital and militarism," and "(the film) is one of Miyazaki's most ambitious and thought-provoking visions as well as one of his most beautifully realized visual projects."

Film critic J. Hoberman writes "As a movie, "The Wind Rises"? is at once beautifully restrained and wildly problematic." Hoberman further writes: "True, the final scenes show a green field strewn with twisted fuselage wreckage. Cruel destruction"? in Japan, that is. I don"?t doubt the sincerity of Miyazaki"?s pacifism but I"?m appalled by his abstract vision. Like, how many tens or hundreds of thousands of real people in Asia and the Pacific were de-animated thanks to Horikoshi"?s dreams?"

A common misconception (as evident in the aforementioned review by Matthew Penney) is to think that the prototype Jiro is developing in the latter half of film is for the Zero, when it is actually a prototype of the Type 96 Fighter, the predecessor of the Zero.

Controversy

On release in Japan, the film received criticism from both the political left and right, as well as from an anti-smoking group. Miyazaki himself added to the controversy by publishing an article in which he criticized Japan's conservative party's proposed changes to the constitution, which irritated nationalists. Leftists were unhappy that a war-plane designer was the film's protagonist. Some questioned why Miyazaki would make a film about a man who "built killing machines", and others pointed out that some of the laborers who built the planes were Korean and Chinese people who were forced into labor. The film has also received criticism from part of the South Korean public.

In an interview with the Asahi Shimbun, Miyazaki said he had "very complex feelings" about the war, but regarding the Zero, he said it "represented one of the few things we Japanese could be proud of - they were a truly formidable presence, and so were the pilots who flew them."

Accolades

Awards
Award	Date of ceremony	Category	Recipients and nominees	Result
Academy Awards	March 2, 2014	Best Animated Feature	Hayao Miyazaki, Toshio Suzuki
Alliance of Women Film Journalists	December 19, 2013	Best Animated Feature	Hayao Miyazaki
Annie Awards	February 1, 2014	Best Animated Feature	The Wind Rises Studio Ghibli, Touchstone Pictures
		Character Animation in a Feature Production	Kitaro Kosaka
		Writing in an Animated Feature Production	Hayao Miyazaki
Asia Pacific Screen Awards	December 12, 2013	Best Animated Feature Film	Toshio Suzuki, Japan
Boston Online Film Critics Association	December 7, 2013	Best Animated Film
Boston Society of Film Critics	December 8, 2013	Best Animated Film
Chicago Film Critics Association	December 16, 2013	Best Foreign - Language Film
Chicago Film Critics Association	December 16, 2013	Best Animated Feature
Critics' Choice Movie Award	January 16, 2014	Best Animated Feature
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics	December 16, 2013	Best Foreign Language Film
Denver Film Critics Society	January 13, 2014	Best Animated Feature
Florida Film Critics Circle	December 18, 2013	Best Animated Feature
Georgia Film Critics Association	January 10, 2014	Best Animated Feature
Golden Globe Awards	January 12, 2014	Best Foreign Language Film
Houston Film Critics Society	December 15, 2013	Best Animated Feature
IGN's Best of 2013 Awards	January 10, 2014	Best Animated Movie
Indiana Film Critics Association	December 19, 2013	Best Animated Feature
International Cinephile Society	February 23, 2014	Best Animated Film
Iowa Film Critics	January 10, 2014	Best Animated Feature
Japan Academy Prize	March 7, 2014	Animation of the Year
Japan Academy Prize	March 7, 2014	Best Music Score	Joe Hisaishi
Las Vegas Film Critics Society	December 18, 2013	Best Animated Feature
Los Angeles Film Critics Association	December 8, 2013	Best Animation
Mill Valley Film Festival	October 13, 2013	Audience Favorite "? Animation	Hayao Miyazaki
National Board of Review	January 7, 2014	Best Animated Film
New York Film Critics Circle	December 3, 2013	Best Animated Film
New York Film Critics Online	December 8, 2013	Best Animated Feature
New York Film Festival	October 13, 2013	Grand Marnier Fellowship Award for Best Film
Online Film Critics Society	December 16, 2013	Best Picture
		Best Director	Hayao Miyazaki
		Best Animated Feature
		Best Film Not in the English Language
		Best Adapted Screenplay	Hayao Miyazaki
Phoenix Film Critics Society	December 17, 2013	Best Animated Film
San Diego Film Critics Society	December 17, 2013	Best Animated Film
San Francisco Film Critics Circle	December 15, 2013	Best Animated Feature
San Sebastin International Film Festival	September 20, 2013	Audience Award
St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association	December 16, 2013	Best Animated Feature
Satellite Awards	February 23, 2014	Best Motion Picture, Animated or Mixed Media
Southeastern Film Critics Association	December 16, 2013	Best Animated Feature
Toronto Film Critics Association	December 17, 2013	Best Animated Feature
Toronto International Film Festival	September 15, 2013	People's Choice Award for Best Drama Feature Film
Utah Film Critics Association	December 20, 2013	Best Animated Feature
Venice Film Festival	September 7, 2013	Golden Lion
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association	December 9, 2013	Best Animated Feature
Women Film Critics Circle	December 16, 2013	Best Animated Feature
Women Film Critics Circle	December 16, 2013	Best Family Film