Porco Rosso

Not only does this rank among Miyazaki’s finest achievements, it reflects his personal love of aviation, his political concerns and his fullest expression to date of a non-fantasy world resembling our own.

This homage to vintage Howard Hawks-style aerial thrills is as beautifully drawn and colored as anything he’s done. And it’s tremendous fun.

As usual with Miyazaki, the plot fits, starts and digresses at will, taking in the textures of pre-fascist Italy, details on the history of aviation and a lucid discussion on gender equality and physical beauty. Oh, and the kids will love it too.

Miyazaki never really explains why his aviator hero has been transformed into a pig (all the other characters are human), and the perfunctory climax fails to tie up any of the themes Miyazaki has developed. But this is masterful storytelling in every other respect, good-humored and frequently suspenseful, with a vivid setting.

Muting adult concerns — like the jackboots of fascism and the ubiquity of male violence — with marshmallow clouds and subtly shifting light, Mr. Miyazaki smooshes fantasy and history into a pastel-pretty yarn as irresistible as his feminism.

Porco Rosso was initially conceived as a short film for Japan Airlines, and its roots show in its delight with aviation and the experience of flight, but also in its somewhat shapeless plot.

It's solid Miyazaki, although he has reached greater heights both before and since.

This is one of my favorite Miyazaki films, and easily one of his most underrated. Porco Rosso is the story of one man seeking redemption. While it maintains Miyazaki's beautiful art style, anti-war themes, and strong female characters, Porco Rosso centers on a middle-aged bounty-hunter protagonist who smokes, drinks, flirts, and flies his way through Fascist Italy in the 1930s. Charming, poignant, funny, devastating, whimsical, and melancholy, Porco Rosso has something for everyone, and isn't afraid to take risks. You don't have to be a fan of anime to enjoy the works of Hayao Miyazaki, and this is one of his finest human dramas. Apart from the curse that turned our hero into a pig, all elements of fantasy that Miyazaki is known for are absent, and the world that this takes place in is very much our own.

Not much at all going on here. Mostly a waste of time. Great animation as usual but there is almost no plot at all. Very boring. If this was Miyazaki's only film, no one would bother mentioning him.

This movie has some VERY strange dialogue between adult male characters and an underage girl. The plot itself is okay, but it doesn't really stand out in any way as a Ghibli film.

The heavy descent of a flightless nostalgia: A 1.0-star "trauma" of disconnected romanticism.2012 (1.0)I watched "Porco Rosso" in 2012, and it was another exhausting encounter with a 1.0-star "trauma" that left me completely alienated. While Studio Ghibli films are often hailed as masterpieces of imagination, this particular story of a cursed pig pilot felt like a series of beautiful but hollow images that failed to provide any "chewy" narrative satisfaction. The "silence" in this film didn't feel like artistic restraint; it felt like a stagnant void where my interest simply withered away. I struggled to find any visceral connection to the protagonist's stoic romanticism, and the sensational charm others claim to see felt entirely absent to me. The 95% preservation of my memory from that viewing is dominated by a sense of "silent frustration" as I waited for a rhythmic spark that never arrived. It lacked the raw, **** energy I admire in cinema, instead drifting aimlessly through a sky of unearned sentimentality. For me, the experience was a jarring misalignment of taste—a narrative flight that never quite took off, leaving me grounded in a state of utter boredom and disappointment. It remains a stark example of how even a legendary director's vision can result in a deeply uninspiring and forgettable ordeal when the emotional core feels so distant and cold.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]