Trailer Trashin’: Enter the World of Japanese Mythology in Kubo and the Two Strings
Happy New Year, dear readers! I hope you all had a good holiday, whatever it is you celebrate. I’m sure a lot of you have also seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens by now, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. And for the last Trailer Trashin’ column of 2015, I’m taking a look at one of the previews I saw in front of Star Wars – the teaser trailer for Laika’s Kubo and the Two Strings.
Premise: The story is set in ancient Japan, where a young boy named Kubo (voice of Art Parkinson) cares for his mother in a village. A spirit from the past turns Kubo’s life upside down by re-igniting an age-old vendetta. This causes all sorts of havoc as gods and monsters chase Kubo who, in order to survive, must locate a magical suit of armor once worn by his late father, a legendary samurai warrior.
My take: I love stop-motion animation. I grew up watching the original King Kong (1933) and the films of Ray Harryhausen, and The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) is my second-favorite Christmas movie of all time. But because of the great investment of time and effort required for stop-motion, films using the technique are few and far between these days. I hadn’t heard of Kubo and the Two Strings prior to seeing this teaser, but its now firmly on my list of films to see in 2016.
While there isn’t any dialogue in this teaser, the film has quite an impressive voice cast: Kubo, our boy hero, is voiced by Art Parkinson, best known as Rickon Stark on Game of Thrones. Charlize Theron voices Monkey, who appears to be a Japanese macaque. Ralph Fiennes plays the Moon King, the ghostly old man. Rooney Mara voices the Sisters, the women wearing the creepy white masks and big hats, who seem to be assassins of some kind. His character’s name isn’t known yet, but George Takei plays the man we see covering the eyes of the little girl standing next to him. And Matthew McConaughey voices Beetle, the huge guy wearing the insect-like metal armor.
The imagery on display here is really beautiful. From the woman on the stormy sea using magic to split the tidal wave, to Monkey battling one of the Sisters, to Kubo underwater facing the giant glowing eyes, to Beetle drawing the sword out of the huge skeleton hand, to Kubo in samurai armor leaping toward a giant serpentine monster, it all looks amazing.
Like I said, I hadn’t even heard of this film before I saw the teaser, and I was blown away when I saw it. I’m always up for a new stop-motion film, and it being inspired by ancient mythology is just icing on the cake for me. When the middle of August rolls around, I definitely want to see Kubo and the Two Strings for myself.
ANTICIPATION: This looks like a quest worth joining.
Starring the voices of: Art Parkinson, Matthew McConaughey, Charlize Theron, Rooney Mara, Ralph Fiennes, Brenda Vaccaro, and George Takei
Director: Travis Knight
Writers: Marc Haimes and Chris Butler
Timothy Monforton
