Each and every famous person usually has a moment that completely changes their life, a moment that sparks a fire so bright that it eventually sets them on a path to becoming the person they are today. And so, the legendary Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki is no exception to this.
In a past interview, Miyazaki himself revealed that there was this one Chinese love story he saw as a kid, that completely changed his perspective on life and motivated him to finally pursue the career he loved. It’s amazing how one experience can have such a profound impact on our lives!
But what could even be this legendary film that indirectly gave birth to Oscar-winning movies like Spirited Away, The Boy and The Heron?
The film that saved Miyazaki!
To say that movies and TV shows are nothing more than entertainment is ignorant. Sometimes, a movie can come along and completely change the meaning of one’s life. For Hayao Miyazaki, that movie was The Tale of the White Serpent, a Japanese animated feature film based on the ancient Chinese tale, Legend of the White Snake.
Although it is a simple romance story between a man named Xu Xian and a female snake spirit named Bai Suzhen, something about it clicked in Miyazaki.
In fact, Miyazaki publicly admitted the impact The Tale of the White Serpent had on him. In a 1999 interview with Brian Camp, he quite enthusiastically mentioned how he saw the film right before a major exam when he was 18 years old!
Thankfully, the film didn’t become an issue in his career for watching it in such a pre-exam scenario, instead, he credited the film for being his lifesaver! Can you even imagine how powerful that movie must have been for him to have that kind of effect?
Right before an exam when I was 18 years old I saw the first Japanese feature-length animated film called THE TALE OF THE WHITE SERPENT. I think that film saved me.
And the legacy of this Chinese legend doesn’t end there! The story still continues to captivate audiences to this day. Recently, in 2019, it was adapted into a 3D animated film simply titled White Snake, which went on to earn a whopping $62,098,770 at the box office!
What about the movie that really put Miyazaki into motion
For Miyazaki, The Tale of the White Serpent was more than just a film, it was something that made him the person he is today. According to him, the movie left a profound impact on him as a young college student and inspired him to pursue his dreams in animation.
However, looking back now, Miyazaki also realizes that the movie is actually a pretty simple and straightforward romantic love story. But for him, at that moment in his life, it was so much more than that.
It was like a message of hope and salvation, and it inspired him to want to create films that would have a similar impact on kids of our generation. Isn’t that so cool?
And so the goal that I always set for myself whenever I make a film is to try to pack that much powerful impact into one of my films so that young people can take that away from my movies the way that I took it away from THE TALE OF THE WHITE SERPENT.
It’s easy to get caught up in all the fancy technology and software that’s available today, but at the end of the day, it’s the simple act of imagining and drawing that’s at the heart of animation. All Miyazaki wants is for our new generation of animators never to stop using the power of our own creative minds.
The Tale of The White Serpent (Hakujaden) is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
