I watched "the wind rises" for the first time back when it came out and i remember beeing very dissapointed with it. Now 4 years later I finaly rewatched the movie and I have to say, my opinion didnt change at all.I think the movie has 2 major problems. One is that the movie has no focus. The movie is about 2 hours long and tries to cover the life of plane engineer Jirou Horikoshi, with his childhood, his experience with the Tokyo earthquake of 1923, his travels to europe, his plane building career and his love life with his wife. In addidtion to all of that the movie has a lot of dream sequences. I think of all these aspects only the dream sequences seemes finished, everything else is just an unfinished product, cut short of what its suppost to be. Take his wife for example: they spend so little time introducing his wife and his relationship to her that ultimately we, as the audience dont care about her and everything that happens to her. I mean, really , what do we know about his wife?... that she likes to paint and loves the main character... thats it. The parts the movie should have focused on (the plane building parts) where cut short and rushed to find time for unecessary "slice of life" elements half way through the film. This completely ruins the tone of the movie.The second major problem is the main character. He is too unemotional and boring. His life goal is to create planes, but did we ever see him get upset when one of his designes didnt work, or really happy when it does? Sure Japan has a more emotionless culture but at home when he is not under people there should have been at least a few scenes where we can see his frustration or joy. Nothing is seen from this character. He succeed in so many parts that he as a character seems so unrealisticly anyways( he is a genius plane designer, speaks multiple languages, is physically strong, etc). All characters around him have more emotion and feel more realisitc than this guy.The art of the movie was fine, it was the usual ghibli style but I find unusual that many scenes seemed kinda weird, either out of propotion or unrealisitic stuff happens (like the earthquake).The sounddesign was not so fine, the soundtrack itself was fine and the voiceacting as well, but often backgroundnoises where cut to such a minimum that the whole scene seemed unrealisitc. Its such a weird design choice.So now I go into a few minor things that bug me about this movie. First of all, at the start of the movie the main character defends a young kid, which kinda tells you he has some sense of justice, which then later was completely contradicted by the fact that he builds warplanes. Sure I can understand him for just building plane for the purpose of building planes, but activley helping a nation that kills millions of people in war (an he should know that, I mean he hangs around foreingers all the time) is at least worthy of discussion. In my opinion they should have given his sister this sense of justice and SHE should have confronted him with this dilemma... he then defends himself and we understand him as a character better. The way it is, the main character hardly ever talks about his point of view or his opinion about MANY things going on around him, which is weird since the movie is a biography about the dude.Second point: In the japanese version his wife yells "Nicu catchu" in the scene where he catches the umbrella. A very weird thing to say and it more reminds me of Japanese spoken in modern times than back then. Sure she has been around foreigners, but then she would have a better accent. Its just something I saw in no other movie depicting Japan before WW2, which is btw a lot.Third and last point: the ending is very unfulfilling and weird. The dialoge spoken in most of the dream sequences is utterly idiotic and shallow but the ending takes the cake. They always speak about Japan blowing up, the millions of life it will cost isnt even worth wrapping your head around, it seems. Then the Italien says something like: "Why would the pilots want to come back from war anyways?"... I dont know, maybe to live their lifes? It seems like the dreamsequences wanted to be profound and symbolic but it came around as more shallow and idiotic in my opinion.So in gerneral: This movie was terrible. If it wasn't for the sudden inclusion of slice of life romance half way through and the idiotic ending I could have accepted it as a decent shallow movie about an emotionless character building planes. The movie would have been pretty boring for everyone not interested into planes or technology in general but it would have been a nice watch for me. Now the only thing that makes this movie watchable was the artstyle and maybe the premise, but you sure notice that the premise tricks you into such a flat storyline.

The Wind Rises follows Jiro Horikoshi, a man who designed fighter planes during World War II.As per usual, Studio Ghibli creates a beautiful looking movie here. The animation is breathtaking, with the scenery being gorgeous to gawk at and the animation itself fluent. More importantly, the first half of the story and almost everything revolving around planes is really well written. The main character, Jiro, is interesting and well-written. The way he acts is realistic, and it's easy to believe that this guy actually existed. I went into this movie not knowing it was about planes. By the look of the poster art, I thought it was a romance. For the whole first hour and a bit I was just waiting for that to start. The first bit wasn't bad by any means, but I felt like there was more waiting, like we were wasting time or developing characters to make a more effective last act. Then the romantic aspect started and I remember audibly telling the movie "no stop, go back!" It was awful. The characters don't spend nearly enough time together on screen to form any chemistry or relationship, and then suddenly they're getting married. It's out of nowhere and I really didn't care at all for their relationship. After that it keeps switching between romance and planes. Again, the planes stuff is cool, but the romance is awful. And this is where the movie gets particularly stupid. Characters make decisions that make no sense whatsoever. I get it, this is based on true events and maybe these decisions were actually made for these reasons, but I don't care about the source material. Make it less accurate for the sake of making a good movie, I don't care. Don't paint this character as a genius then turn him idiot for the last act, it just doesn't make sense. Also the voicing acting is pretty bad. Now I watched the dub, shoot me if you want, I don't care. It's the official dub, so it should hold to the same standard of quality as the original. And it doesn't. Go ahead and tell me to watch the sub because it's 'so much better', but I prefer to watch my movies instead of read them, especially when that option is available professionally. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is awful as Jiro. He's so dull, it's like he's literally reading the script for the first time, not processing a single line and just saying it all. Moreover, John Krasinski as one of his friends is overly excited all the time. And I mean, ALL THE TIME. Yet his character's face looks constantly unimpressed or bored. It's like the voice actors should've been switched. Overall The Wind Rises is not the movie I hoped it'd be. Despite expecting one thing, I enjoyed the other part much more. Only about half this movie is good, and the rest is still littered with no-so- great aspects. In the end I wouldn't recommend this movie.

I knew this was a film from the Japanese animation geniuses at Studio Ghibli, I didn't know it was based on a real story, to be honest though I mainly wanted to watch it because of its inclusion at the Oscars, directed by Hayao Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away). Basically it tells the true story of Jiro Horikoshi, the man who designed Japanese fighter planes during World War II. As a young boy, Jirô (Zach Callison) dreamed of flying and designing beautiful aeroplanes, he was inspired by the famous Italian aeronautical designer Giovanni Battista Caproni (Stanley Tucci), he has a dream about meeting him. Unfortunately Jiro's nearsightedness from a young age prevented him from becoming a pilot, but in his dream, Caproni told him he never actually flew a plane in his life, and that building them is better. When he grows up, Jirô Horikoshi (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) joins a major Japanese engineering company and becomes one of the world's most innovative and accomplished aeroplane designers, including the design for the Mitsubishi A6M Zero. The story sees him going through his own life, as well as experiencing historical events of the time, including the Great Kanto Earthquake, the Great Depression, the tuberculosis epidemic and Japan plunged into the Second World War. It also sees Jiro falling in love with Nahoko (Emily Blunt), who suffers tuberculosis and a lung haemorrhage, but eventually recovers and marries him, and it also sees his cherished friendship with his colleague Honjô (John Krasinski). Also starring Martin Short as Kurokawa, Mandy Patinkin as Hattori, Mae Whitman as Kayo Horikoshi, Jennifer Grey as Mrs. Kurokawa, William H. Macy as Satomi, Elijah Wood as Sone and Werner Herzog as Castorp. The stars doing the dubbed voices are all fine, there is no denying it is fantastic hand-drawn animation as usual, I'm not sure if going for a more realistic approach is right for the studio, we are more used to the fantasy stories with fantastical creatures, but it is just about interesting, an alright animated drama. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film of the Year and it was nominated the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. Worth watching!

My expectations made this film a little less thrilling than it might have been; still I am pleased to have seen it.Jiro, a plane designer, lives a rather mundane and ordinary life. He dreams of becoming a creator of planes, and takes inspiration from those before him. The Wind Rises captures the will and person of Jiro as he learns what it means to be an artist of planes. Characters in this movie are sparse and mostly undeveloped, but they are still endearing and easy to understand. I watched the English dubbed version of the movie and so some of the acting was (I know it can't be helped) a little offsetting. It was tolerable. I can say i grew attached to the simple characters whose role was not so much to describe certain people but to characterize certain attitudes about the history and culture. Perhaps I watched this movie hoping for more permanent, particular people, but I understand that the movie did not serve to show them in that way.The most incredible part of the film was the artistic choices Miyazaki dared to make. I didn't like the movie too much because it was slow and very quiet-- this however creates an effect much like the wind. The wind heavily influences the flow and dynamic of the piece, and so it became a canvas moved by the delicate hands of life. What I wanted to see in this movie, however, was a little more depth of narrative. The movie is not for those who come to see a mentally riveting production, and I think that is perfectly fine. The point of the movie is to posit a historical piece of information, and like all history, lay down a thesis of life. Life is passing, quick, and cannot be seen so much as it has to be felt. But we know when we feel it.Miyazaki's "The Wind Rises" is a diligent piece of art.