Princess Raccoon DVD, 2005

Suzuki Seijun is an 82 year-old director who has learned a lot and forgotten very little about cinema and its possibilities. Famous for cult gangster films and battles with baffled studio bosses, here he changes tack and offers us sheer pleasure in a love letter to cinema. If you can imagine Michael Powell and Baz Luhrmann signed up as a team to adapt a Japanese folk tale in the style of a kabuki show, or as its Japanese title suggests, an 'operetta', you are part way to describing Princess Raccoon.
Miyazaki Hayao (Spirited Away etc.) meets Ichikawa Kon (An Actor's Revenge) - stage sets, animation, Hollywood musical numbers, scroll paintings and flying CGI raccoons are just some of the elements. The ravishing Zhang Ziyi plays the raccoon spirit princess (from Cathay) who falls in love with an exiled human prince in what appears to be sixteenth century Japan. Those looking for deeper meanings might want to explore ideas about religion and cultural exchange (the Christian and European influence), but watching it just for great fun is OK too.

Roy Stafford on 14th September 2006
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