Creating a movie for children with a strong environmental message that is entertaining yet not too childish, or too pedantic must be hard. In this context by “childish” I mean that just because the target audience has limited experience or knowledge we shouldn’t insult their intelligence levels by creating overly simplistic features. Similarly pedantic would mean that it’s single focus is to teach, which is difficult for any age group without grabbing attention via some mean. Nevertheless “A Tale of Ululu’s Wonderful Forest” comes close to reaching the goals mentioned above. (I will not attempt to write down the original title of this Japanese movie, let me just share how IMDB transliterated its title: “Ururu no mori no monogatari.”)
Here are some datapoints I learned from the movie, which I believe they wanted to teach the audience:
- Wolves are great protectors and have strong family bonds.
- People ruined the forests.
- The rule for rescued wild animals is “born wild, remains wild”
- This rule cannot be broken for gaining more scientific knowledge. (i.e. even rare specimens have to be released to the wild.
- Sometimes you have to be tough on the people/animal you love for their own sake.
That’s enough of ecology, let’s focus on the more important area of pop culture:
- “Horekeshi” is the mystical kingdom of wolves in Japanese culture.
- The goal of the journey the kids and their father is the shining pond. The road leads through a forest that is similar to Avatar’s in some respects.
- Kyoko Fukada, the actress who played the kids’ photographer aunt is known for her roles as sexy teenager in horror movies. This was not her typical roll and she struggled with it.
Overall I found the movie a bit too much sentimental but it was definitely better than other nature movie for kids. Despite having the mythical element it seemed more realistic than its American counterparts.
IMDB’s summary: A brother and sister leave the big city to live with their veterinarian father when their mother is hospitalized. As they are adjusting to their new life filled with natural beauty, they adopt an abandoned puppy. When it is discovered that the puppy is actually a wolf, they choose to return the baby wolf to its mother in the forest rather than let it live a life in captivity.