Leave it to Toho to make a live-action adaptation of The Tale of Princess Kaguya starring the legendary Toshiro Mifune, which involves heavy usage of special effects and an alien origin for the titular Princess. It's a madcap concoction with a superficially silly story that honestly shouldn't have worked as well as it did.

A married couple of poor farmers has lost their only child, who recently passed away. The woman, Tayoshime, cries out loud to heaven. The father Taketori-no-Miyatsuko, goes into the forests and sees a strange kind of electric storm. He finds, in the centre of the burnt land, a strange blue cocoon. It opens up and a small child, with piercing blue eyes and an uncanny resemblance to their dead daughter, appears. Soon good fortune begins to favour them but good fortune brings jealousy from others...

A very out there adaptation of its basis, Princess from the Moon is an extremely heartfelt movie despite it being rather silly in places but the tone is consistently held which doesn't detract from the experience. It's simple in the best way possible, that it continues to uphold its glittery, fairytale and dream-like nature until the very end. Kudos to director Kon Ichikawa here despite the grey colour palette that populates the film, for the most part, it's his use of colour that truly pops but I could have done without the George Lucas-inspired screen wipes.

The final work of Special Effects Director Teruyoshi Nakano and honestly, he earned his Academy Award here, even if I find baby Kaya very uncanny valley. It's with the film's Close Encounters-styled spaceship that shows up in the final 20 minutes where Nakano's effects really impress. A gorgeous mix of the designs from Close Encounters and Spielberg's other alien movie, ET, it arrives to a glorious fanfare and looks utterly spellbinding.

The score by Kensaku Tanikawa is one of the weirder elements for me, it simply doesn't fit very well in many situations and is very sappy in its spirit. Although I will say the final piece that plays as Kaya's ship leaves Earth is truly beautiful and of course, I have to shout out the credits theme "Stay With Me" done by Chicago frontman Peter Cetera.

There's a very reserved and understated performance by Toshiro Mifune here, a drastic turn from his talkative nature we've come to see in other films. Yasuko Sawaguchi is the titular princess and delivers a lovely performance; Megumi Odaka's performance as the blind girl Akeno is most certainly an audition for her later role as Miki Saegusa in the later Heisei Godzilla entries. The rest of the cast all perform their roles well. It's just a very well-acted film all things considered.

Overall, while Princess from the Moon might be an oversimplified version of the original tale, it doesn't skimp on its storytelling and title; worth it for Toshiro Mifune all things considered.

PRINCESS FROM THE MOON / TALE OF THE BAMBOO CUTTER (LIT.) (TAKETORI MONOGATARI). Viewed on Streaming. Costumes = eight (8) stars; restoration/preservation = eight (8) stars; subtitles = eight (8) stars; cinematography = six (6) stars; set design = six (6) stars; score = five (5) stars; special effects = three (3) stars. Director Kon Ichikawa (who is also credited as a writer) provides a fairy tale (geared toward adults) set in the late 8th Century about the adventures of the sole survivor of a space-ship crash who arrives as an infant and is adopted and raised as a daughter by an impoverished rural couple whose young daughter has coincidentally just died. Ichikawa's fantasy photo-play is a well constructed, updated twist to an ancient (and mysterious) Japanese folk tale. (The sudden post-adoption wealth of the poor couple is particularly an enigma!) Toshirou Mifune's performance is usually upstaged by other actresses and actors. His line readings are considerably less that those of others. Apparently his name was used for window dressing. Leading actress Yasuko Sawaguchi fully develops her plumb role as the puzzling "princess" with an abundance of growth hormone. Supporting actresses and actors are generally fine except for bits of over acting here and there. Court scenes are especially well done. Costumes look (in color) and sound (like silk rustling?) spectacular. They also seem to be authentic for the period. Cinematography (wide screen, color) is okay, but village crowd scenes are often a bit blurry (perhaps to help hide exterior set limitations?). Unfortunately, the film goes off the rails in its final scenes and on the closing credits sound track. It takes way too long for this highly derived ending to wrap, and the special effects are dated (even when the film was released) and well on the cheesy side. (If you think you've already seen a huge space ship like this arrive and pick up a stray, you sure have in other sci-fi films with superior special effects!) End credits include a bolted-on song sung (would you believe?) in English and consisting of a one line lyric repeated Ad Nauseam. (Overly nervous producers/distributors?) Nonetheless, recommended. WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.

If you are all a fan of great Japanese films and culture, see this one.

Based of a famous classic fairy tale, it has top of the line production values.

Beautiful visually and a great cast, it is a hidden gem with a classic, mystical, Japanese feel.

I don't know how I failed to see this sooner, it was on TCM.