Pom Poko

1995 "A Fantastic Tale Of Survival"
7.2| 1h59m| G| en
Details

The Raccoons of the Tama Hills are being forced from their homes by the rapid development of houses and shopping malls. As it becomes harder to find food and shelter, they decide to band together and fight back. The Raccoons practice and perfect the ancient art of transformation until they are even able to appear as humans in hilarious circumstances.

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Reviews

CommentsXp Best movie ever!
Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
ActuallyGlimmer The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
Irishchatter Literally I had thought this movie was gonna be rather childish and I was near to pressing the back button. However I changed my mind and left it to play, boy that was the best decision I have ever made because I would miss an opportunity to know that this film is the best I have seen in a long time!I thought the voice acting and the storyline was just fantastic like it would definitely put a smile on your face in a very odd way! I didn't like the fact the Racoons bits were shown because that's all I was looking at whenever the guys had a scene together xDThat's why I took away one star but overall excellent film !!!!
chuck-526 (This review is of the Dusney Studios DVD via NetFlix in 2010, and may not exactly match some other releases.) While both the visuals and the storyline of Pom Poko are typical Studio Ghibli, the storyline doesn't completely translate across cultures to the U.S. readily.There are an awful lot of references to Japanese folklore and quite a few to Japanese culture, so many that the storyline only makes moderate sense to a naive viewer. For one example midway through the film there's a highly varied and lengthy parade of goblins. Every goblin shown is real in the sense that it has its own back-story in Japanese folklore. Although you can enjoy the display without knowing the details of each character, it's just not the same. For a second example, years are referred to in what at first appears to a U.S. viewer to be a rather strange construct about "era"s, something that's typically assumed to be specific to the characters in the film and somewhat random. In fact, the "era" construct for naming years is standardized and is used throughout Japanese society.Translation across cultures is a particular problem when it's not just secondary things but is the main characters. The main characters are "Tanuki", sometimes translated as "Tanuki" again, sometimes as "Racoon dog", and with a possible reference to something that would be called a "badger" in the U.S. While real, these creatures also have a central place in Japanese folklore. Particularly important are their "balls", which are displayed prominently, contained in a scrotum reputed to be as large as eight tatami mats. While the original is already a part of Japanese culture, is known by everyone, and is the source of quite a bit of gentle humor; American attitudes probably vary from some finding it a bit "odd" to the prudish finding it just plain "objectionable".Disney has done new/dubbed soundtracks for all the U.S. releases of Studio Ghibli material. Generally they're excellent, translating not only the words but also the most important cultural references. But here the Disney soundtrack has had difficulties (not blatantly obvious on first viewing, but clear enough on the second viewing); there are too many cultural references to translate, yet translating just the words results in a story that too often doesn't quite make sense. Even the earlier subtitles make obvious trade-offs that are not always successful, for example calling the main characters "Racoons" rather than "Tanuki" even though doing so risks changing the meaning of the story significantly. Both the old Japanese soundtrack and the new/dubbed Disney soundtrack are present. (As usual, the mouth movements of the anime characters don't quite match the English soundtrack, but the effect is not at all jarring and is in fact quite easy to just ignore.) More importantly, both the old subtitles that try to match the literal Japanese very closely and the new subtitles that exactly match the Disney soundtrack are present. Not being able to understand Japanese, I of course resorted to the English translations, but found neither the Disney soundtrack nor the original subtitles to be completely adequate. What worked better for me was a combination of the two -Disney new/dubbed English soundtrack (audio track 1 of 2) and original English subtitles (subtitle track 2 of 3).
ghoolsby I enjoyed Pom Poko very much, and I think Disney will find a way to make money on it as soon as they can convince the American audience that Raccoons are marsupials.During the monster parade, they show the standard scene of a drunk who is amazing by amazing stuff. Where did this begin? Was it Japan, America or somewhere else? I think an early Gamara movie has a similar scene.In American toons, the drunk who sees amazing stuff usually produces a pint bottle and drops it on the ground.Just like fruit carts will always be pushed over in the chase scene of every movie, every movie with amazing things will have a drunk to see it.
Lee Scott I don't know if maybe you have to be Japanese to get this film properly, but, despite the perfectly clear English dubbing, I feel like I watched this in its native tongue. I'm pretty much a Studio Ghibli veteran thanks to my girlfriend, and enjoy many of the films I've seen from Hayao Miyazaki. This is not one of his, it was produced by a stable mate, and its differences are as many as its similarities. As you would expect from Ghibli, the traditional animation is excellent and the characters are often awesomely cute. As you wouldn't expect, the pacing is flat, the odd narration unhelpful and the ending, well, isn't happy. Please understand – I like unhappy films, it's not that I can't cope with downbeat. However, the presentation and tone are so incongruous that I just felt detached and confused by the whole affair. Overall, I'd rather watch My Neighbour Tortoro.