Title: Like the Clouds, Like the Wind (Kumo no you ni, Kaze no you ni)
Director: Hisayuki Toriumi
Writer: Kenichi Sakemi (Novella) Akira Miyazaki (Screenplay)
Year: 1990
It is claimed that people often mistakenly believe Like the Clouds, Like the Wind to be a Ghibli offering, since its character design was undertaken by Katsuya Kondo, who worked on Kiki’s Delivery Service and Ocean Waves (although more excitingly for me personally, he worked on the criminally underrated PS1 game Jade Cocoon), and the feel of the film, if not the story, seems to be cut from the Ghibli cloth.
The story is based in ancient China, though my knowledge of ancient Chinese history is sparse so I cannot comment whether the premise has any historical accuracy or whether it is entirely fantastical. The tale opens with the death of the current Emperor, and the subsequent crowning/throning of a new Emperor hails an Empire-wide search for concubines suitable to become the new Empress. The search throws up Ginga, a country girl who is inappropriately uncultured in the ways of the aristocracy. She is energetic, brash and comparatively boorish when seen alongside the contained and stringent respect-based understated dignity of the aristocracy. From the outset she is set up as the most unlikely person in the world to be become the new Empress, though I would argue it is purposefully clear from the outset that she is so wrong, she is right.
Ginga decides to put herself forward as a candidate after being told that the Emperor’s wife would enjoy the luxurious lifestyle of “three meals a day and time to nap”. Sometimes I shudder at the things I take for granted, when in ancient, possibly fantastical, times, people would have to marry an Emperor in order to enjoy the lifestyle I enjoy.
As the story unfolds, it veers back and forth from being an adventure story, to being a tale of romance, eventually incorporating a plot where a wholesale rebellion erupts. Rather than offering the story depth and nuance, I feel this eclectic approach makes the piece slightly too busy, where characters are introduced without enough time to explore them or even to allow them any real actions, making them feel like cameos, which I presume only has much impact for people who are familiar with the novella that the film is based upon. For instance, Ginga, upon reaching the Inner Palace, is made to share a room with 3 other potential-Empresses, and after a scene where we are introduced, including names and backgrounds, two of the characters have very little bearing on the actual story.
Though the animation draws comparison to, it doesn’t quite have the glistening style of a Studio Ghibli production, which isn’t to damn the film as Ghibli’s offerings are sensational.
I was slightly unsure whilst watching the film what sort of audience it was originally aimed at, for the background music; chirpy upbeat woodwind for the most part, and various characters’ reaction to punchlines; falling over and yelling, seemed to suggest that this was a kids film. However, there are some examples of explicitly vicious violence hidden in there, such as when the main character bricks an assassin in the face, or when a horse rider takes an arrow to the throat, or when a main character is impaled by spears. Multiple spears. Impaled. Violence in offerings meant for the Japanese kiddie market is hardly surprising, as they, the Japanese filmmakers, seem to take a far more laissez faire attitude, where there are moments of genuine hair-raising violence in, to return to previous comparisons, the works of Ghibli. It seems that while Western kids' films will allow some ‘mild peril’, the Japanese are happy enough to include ‘explicit impaling’. Not that I was overly bothered by this, just a bit shocked, as the film flits back and forth between overt violence and cartoony invincibility, where soldiers survive and stumble around covered in soot after a huge cannon is fired directly into the tunnel where they are charging.
There is also a suicide in the film, which is perhaps due to suicide being treated far differently in the Far East, especially in a historical context. Despite not being able to make up its mind between harsh violence and sweet silliness, the film does occasionally display a genuine deft suggestive touch, where adults will understand what is being hinted at, but, arguably, inappropriate topics will sail over the heads of children.
The film ends with an anticlimactic narrated outro, which is seemingly jammed in to make up for the lack of any genuine closure, and tries its hand at symbolism, where crows are nesting in the ruins of the citadel, and rearing their young, emphasising that new life can come from destruction. Aww, lovely.
All in all, the film won’t blow your mind, but it is quite nice. Damned by faint praise, sorry Kumo Kaze.
Director: Hisayuki Toriumi
Writer: Kenichi Sakemi (Novella) Akira Miyazaki (Screenplay)
Year: 1990
It is claimed that people often mistakenly believe Like the Clouds, Like the Wind to be a Ghibli offering, since its character design was undertaken by Katsuya Kondo, who worked on Kiki’s Delivery Service and Ocean Waves (although more excitingly for me personally, he worked on the criminally underrated PS1 game Jade Cocoon), and the feel of the film, if not the story, seems to be cut from the Ghibli cloth.
The story is based in ancient China, though my knowledge of ancient Chinese history is sparse so I cannot comment whether the premise has any historical accuracy or whether it is entirely fantastical. The tale opens with the death of the current Emperor, and the subsequent crowning/throning of a new Emperor hails an Empire-wide search for concubines suitable to become the new Empress. The search throws up Ginga, a country girl who is inappropriately uncultured in the ways of the aristocracy. She is energetic, brash and comparatively boorish when seen alongside the contained and stringent respect-based understated dignity of the aristocracy. From the outset she is set up as the most unlikely person in the world to be become the new Empress, though I would argue it is purposefully clear from the outset that she is so wrong, she is right.
Ginga decides to put herself forward as a candidate after being told that the Emperor’s wife would enjoy the luxurious lifestyle of “three meals a day and time to nap”. Sometimes I shudder at the things I take for granted, when in ancient, possibly fantastical, times, people would have to marry an Emperor in order to enjoy the lifestyle I enjoy.
As the story unfolds, it veers back and forth from being an adventure story, to being a tale of romance, eventually incorporating a plot where a wholesale rebellion erupts. Rather than offering the story depth and nuance, I feel this eclectic approach makes the piece slightly too busy, where characters are introduced without enough time to explore them or even to allow them any real actions, making them feel like cameos, which I presume only has much impact for people who are familiar with the novella that the film is based upon. For instance, Ginga, upon reaching the Inner Palace, is made to share a room with 3 other potential-Empresses, and after a scene where we are introduced, including names and backgrounds, two of the characters have very little bearing on the actual story.
Though the animation draws comparison to, it doesn’t quite have the glistening style of a Studio Ghibli production, which isn’t to damn the film as Ghibli’s offerings are sensational.
I was slightly unsure whilst watching the film what sort of audience it was originally aimed at, for the background music; chirpy upbeat woodwind for the most part, and various characters’ reaction to punchlines; falling over and yelling, seemed to suggest that this was a kids film. However, there are some examples of explicitly vicious violence hidden in there, such as when the main character bricks an assassin in the face, or when a horse rider takes an arrow to the throat, or when a main character is impaled by spears. Multiple spears. Impaled. Violence in offerings meant for the Japanese kiddie market is hardly surprising, as they, the Japanese filmmakers, seem to take a far more laissez faire attitude, where there are moments of genuine hair-raising violence in, to return to previous comparisons, the works of Ghibli. It seems that while Western kids' films will allow some ‘mild peril’, the Japanese are happy enough to include ‘explicit impaling’. Not that I was overly bothered by this, just a bit shocked, as the film flits back and forth between overt violence and cartoony invincibility, where soldiers survive and stumble around covered in soot after a huge cannon is fired directly into the tunnel where they are charging.
There is also a suicide in the film, which is perhaps due to suicide being treated far differently in the Far East, especially in a historical context. Despite not being able to make up its mind between harsh violence and sweet silliness, the film does occasionally display a genuine deft suggestive touch, where adults will understand what is being hinted at, but, arguably, inappropriate topics will sail over the heads of children.
The film ends with an anticlimactic narrated outro, which is seemingly jammed in to make up for the lack of any genuine closure, and tries its hand at symbolism, where crows are nesting in the ruins of the citadel, and rearing their young, emphasising that new life can come from destruction. Aww, lovely.
All in all, the film won’t blow your mind, but it is quite nice. Damned by faint praise, sorry Kumo Kaze.
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