The Deer King

Japan­ese ani­ma­tion pow­er­house Stu­dio Ghi­b­li has become an indus­try all of its own as every year sees new cre­ative tal­ent leave the stu­dio to devel­op their own inde­pen­dent work. The lat­est Ghi­b­li alum­ni project has been adapt­ed from Nahoko Uehashi’s nov­el series ​‘The Deer King’ and was co-direct­ed by Masashi Ando, pre­vi­ous­ly a key ani­ma­tor and char­ac­ter design­er on Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke and Spir­it­ed Away, and Masayu­ki Miya­ji, who worked as assis­tant direc­tor on the latter.

In an expo­si­tion-heavy open­ing sequence, The Deer King sets up a fan­ta­sy world of clash­ing cul­tures, rich world-build­ing and sprawl­ing his­to­ries. Led by the deer-rid­ing Van (Shinichi Tsut­su­mi), a group of war­riors fought back against the Empire of Zol, and lost. While on the run from impris­on­ment, Van meets and becomes the pro­tec­tor of a young girl, Yuna (Hisui Kimu­ra), as the pair fight off a pack of wolves that are car­ry­ing a mys­te­ri­ous, dead­ly dis­ease. From here, a dense nar­ra­tive – fea­tur­ing reli­gious anti-vaxxers, divine ret­ri­bu­tion and a decay­ing king­dom – unfolds.

The film’s themes of found fam­i­ly, impe­ri­al­is­tic con­quest and nature vs indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion tread famil­iar ground, most obvi­ous­ly explored in Princess Mononoke. How­ev­er, Ando and Miya­ji dis­tin­guish their film through its source material’s focus on sci­ence (Uehashi’s series won a prize for med­ical fic­tion in Japan). Billed as a ​“med­ical fan­ta­sy,” The Deer King con­cerns a doc­tor who attempts to find a cure for what is per­ceived as a super­nat­ur­al dis­ease. Char­ac­ters must work togeth­er to over­come their dif­fer­ences and find a cure for this mys­te­ri­ous pan­dem­ic, which feels espe­cial­ly per­ti­nent in 2021.

The Deer King feels like the tip of the ice­berg of a big­ger sto­ry that takes place off-screen, yet the his­tor­i­cal con­text that under­pins the plot is breath­less­ly rushed through in the first five min­utes. As a result, there are moments when the film’s pac­ing either drags or gal­lops, a frus­trat­ing con­se­quence of turn­ing a nov­el series into a two-hour film. Thank­ful­ly, the rela­tion­ship between Van and adopt­ed daugh­ter Yuru anchors the sto­ry, giv­ing it emo­tion­al depth.

Although occa­sion­al­ly let down by weak writ­ing and errat­ic pac­ing, the film’s visu­als are glo­ri­ous. Unsur­pris­ing­ly giv­en its cre­ators’ back­grounds, The Deer King is metic­u­lous­ly craft­ed. Ando and Miya­ji give life to their fan­ta­sy king­dom through detailed char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion; whether it’s a nose scrunch or a fly­ing punch, every phys­i­cal move­ment has been care­ful­ly con­sid­ered. With ideas and an aes­thet­ic that are cer­tain to strike a chord with Stu­dio Ghi­b­li fans, The Deer King is at once fresh and pleas­ant­ly familiar.