The Place Promised in our Early Days

[RickThunderclees]

Has anyone seen this film? The only trailer I could find for it was in Japanese, is there one in english somewhere?

Anyway, if you've seen it, what'd you think? Does it live up to its reviews and expectations? I was a big fan of Voices of a Distant Star so I figured I'd give this one a whirl.

[SAMAS]

I think it might.

In a later chapter of Negima, Ako Izumi is actually wearing a shirt that advertises it. :D

[Steve]

The ADV Films.com (http://www.advfilms.com/) front page has the English trailer. It should be under the section Featured Title. You'll have to scroll down. The download is slow but it you want it bad, I guess it's worth it. Once it's done dowloading, there's no audio when it plays. You'll have to pause and unpause to get it. Weird, I know, but it's the only place I know of that has the English Trailer.

[Pikachu]

I recently did a top 10 Japanese film recommendations on my blog. This film made my top ten! Check out my blog for more details.

www.swirlymuffins.blogspot.com

*Edit*
Here's the segment from my Blog. If you're curious about Japanese cinema, I highly recommend you consider watching some of the films I put on the list. Also, it's just a fun way to appreciate Japanese culture and history.


The Place Promised In Our Early Days captures something innately Japanese. In what Rodger Ebert calls a "pillow shot," or that pristine moment of contemplation lacking in western cinema where we glimpse a landscape, pause, and the only external focus is on the sound of a train crossing off in the distance, this Anime captures these in almost every scene -as the original title of Kumo no Mukô, Yakusoku no Basho eludes to. The film is a science fiction made by Makoto Shinkai, the same guy who single handedly created, animated, and directed Voices of a Distant Star.

The film runs like a poem, and captures the feeling of growing up, falling in love, losing a loved one, and wondering if there is more in life than just walking through the (e)motions. When an alternate reality forces our character's to awaken from a corrupted worldly logic, we have a neat story which shows that the human connection and genuine love can overcome any adversity. The film is melancholy in its tone, but entirely bitter sweet in its execution. Above all of this, it is one of the most beautifully animated and wonderfully orchestrated pieces ever made.


Pika!

[jboncha]

There is a Shinkai Collection that was released recently by ADV that contains both Places... & Voices... that I am considering buy and that you might be interested in.
It contains both movies, the soundtrack to the first movie & two books taht talk about the making of the movies.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7562675&type=product&id=1495610

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000BKSJ5W/sr=8-1/qid=1139808143/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-9640747-6091862?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance



J B

[M203]

Watched it. It's a good piece of work but the storytelling can be patchy at times. Other than that, the animation style suits the script very well and the leads are defined alright, but they could be better. Maybe they should have done a prologue that was more in-depth?

Overall it's quite satisfying, character development is good but marginally so. For such a far-reaching storyline they might have wanted to stretch it out a bit.