Who doesn’t want a new film from visionary director Mamoru Hosoda? The man behind The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars, and Wolf Children will be returning Summer 2021 with a new film. Ryu to Sobakasu no Hime, meaning “The Dragon and the Freckled Princess” but is being sold in English as Belle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS1HoHA2HSA
Here’s the film’s synopsis from its official website:
The protagonist of this story, Suzu, is a 17-year old high school girl living with her father in a rural town of Kochi — their town is a textbook definition of depopulation in the Japanese countryside. Wounded by the loss of her mother at a young age, Suzu one day discovers the massive online world, “U,” and dives into this alternate reality as her avatar, Belle. Before long, all of U’s eyes are fixed on Belle (Suzu), when one day the mysterious and infamous Dragon-like figure appears before her.
“Belle is the movie that I have always wanted to create,” Hosoda said in an official statement, “I am only able to make this film a reality because of the culmination of my past works. I explore romance, action and suspense on the one hand, and deeper themes such as life and death on the other. I expect this to be a big entertainment spectacle.”
Hosoda has dealt with films that take place primarily in digital spaces, including Digimon: The Movie and Summer Wars. It’ll be interesting to see if a romance does play out against Suzu and the mysterious dragon beast. After all, what would it want with her in a purely digital world? The animation we get to see is bright and highly detailed, especially when it comes to U, so it’ll be cool to see how the world is further developed.
Belle will be released in Japan in Summer 2021, with no word yet as to when the film will be distributed to other markets.
