Hayao Miyazaki really could work with different genres. This is the only one I can think of that's completely normal. It seems more obvious that a lot of normal stuff is based on a true story. I admit that I probably thought this was the weakest movie he did. Granted, it's still awesome! As Doug Walker would say, I'd rather watch the worst Miyazaki film than the best Michael Bay film.The best part is probably the love story. I really was interested in how well of a role that played. Of course, as other people might have guessed, a lot of the events of the real person's life were fictionalized. I guess I was just thinking that a movie taking place in World War II would feature a lot more action. It still worked great as like "Argo", it showed a lesser known story about a lesser known person who wasn't right in on the action. Of course the animation is fantastic. ***1/2

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.

...And the story is so excellent it could have been a live action film Studio Ghibli at it's best and animation at it's best. how did the Oscars pass up on this for the win!? Plus I'm showing favoritism as the movie is about one of my favorite subjects, Aviation.Somewhere in-between The Great War and World War II lies Jiro, a young Japanese man who becomes a fan of an Italian airplane designer and shares his dream (Literately in the sense of the movie) of designing air crafts, and the movie goes through his process, as well as him finding love.I don't know if this is a true story or how inspired by true events the movie is, but the Zero fighter that Jiro designs was used by the Japanese in World War 2. I do know the title comes form a poem. The Wind Rises, what a perfect title for a movie about Aviation.Anyway, The Wind Rises is like a painting in movement. the complete extension of what I want from animation. There was one scene in which Japan suffered an earthquake and with animation, they intensified the scene making it look like the ground just had a hiccup and caused all this chaos and destruction. it was brilliant.So I'm sorry, as good as Frozen is I think the Oscars made the wrong choice in not given the Wind Rises the trophy.

Miyazaki is my absolute favorite director, so it especially hurt to be so disappointed by this, his supposedly last film. It's about a real person, a Japanese engineer who designed WWII fighter planes. Miyazaki loves his flying machines, and this guy, who was apparently opposed to the war, was a huge inspiration to him. But the movie is unbearably boring, and I think a big part of the problem was that it was based on a real person. I mean, a lot of Miyazaki's movies are relatively slow. Movies like Totoro or Kiki's Delivery Service feel very pensive. But he's very inventive and imaginative, and you always get that he has something important to say, about the environment, or the importance of self-reliance, for example. But with this film, he was somewhat restricted to real events, and it just didn't feel as flexible or meaningful. He introduced this absolutely bizarre dream character in a series of dream sequences, and I HATE dream sequences. They made the film feel gimmicky rather than innovative.