The Boy and the Heron

This is a gr at movie, but it's probably a bit much for younger audiences. There is quite a bit of violence (a boy self harms, a fish is cut open and it's organs spill out) and it can be quite dark and frightening (the main character's mother dies, and parakeets try to eat humans, though this is done comically), there is no sex, and the swearing is mild (damn).

SPOILERS It was a fantastic movie, but had a bit of blood, and it is literally set during WW2, and in the very beginning you see a whole village on fire, and one of the boy's parents dies in the very beginning too. Also, the boy self-harms, and bleeds a lot in the beginning. When cutting a big fish, the boy pops a blood vessel in the fish, and a lot of the fish's guts spill over. Also the boy tries to attack a bird, and at one point pierces the bird's beak with an arrow. Another bird is shown bloody and injured and pleads to be "put out of its misery." Some disturbing-ish images are shown. There is a lot of fire, and mainly women shown in it. And creatures are trying to kill and eat the boy at one point, but he is left unharmed. There is a lot of smoking in it too, and old ladies are jealous of somebody having cigarettes. And somebody is willing to do services for the boy in exchange for cigarettes. For how good it was, in my opinion, the movie was sooooo good, I just loved it so much, and it was a great movie, but overall, I would say it was a very metaphorical movie, and it is pretty difficult to understand, and I would say, the age rating depends on how well you understand the movie. Bye!

This wasn't exactly a film for kids, rather, it's a metaphor for Miyazaki Hayao. It is showing how his career is coming to an end, and he has built this world, like in the movie, and he keeps rearranging pieces, like the blocks of the granduncle, and he has to find a successor, and another company has bought it over. In the movie, that's like the boy having to accept a step mother instead of his true mother who passed away in the beginning, like our "father" of Studio Ghibli. It's more a metaphorical movie for his journey coming to an end. Also, the name in Japanese is "How do you live?" which is much more profound and will help you to understand the film when seeing it. Sorry if this is confusing. Here's the part of the review that shows how the movie is in of itself: This was an enjoyable film but it did not live up to the standards and enjoyableness of the other Studio Ghibli films, as I am quite a fan of his other films. It wasn't the best executed and was missing a lot of KEY elements that Hayao Miyazaki has, butit was still fun. The Boy and the Heron was creepy and did not have as much main character development as the other films. It also was not a very uplifting film and the ending did not round out amazingly. The movie has a great metaphor, however, and is really profound. It would have done better if the main character had been more fleshed out and there was more emotional attachment. There was more blood and a bit of self harm which is not as good for younger viewers imo. Enjoy!!!

Really disappointed by this Ghibli movie. I’m a fan of other Ghibli movies so I was really looking forward to watching this for a long time, but all my expectations hit rock bottom. My friends and I were soooooo confused after the movie ended because nothing made sense. From start to finish everything was so confusing. There are some scary scenes not for young children, like when he hits his head with a rock intentionally and blood gushes out (it’s a little bit of an exaggeration the amount of blood to be honest, he’ll be dead if that much blood came out of his head), the tense emotion of him running through fire to try and reach his mother, one scene he cuts open a fish and stabs a blood vessel, because blood squirts all over his face and then he cuts more and the guts start to spill out, but because it’s a huge fish, the guts are huge too and push him off which is slightly disturbing and gross. Shortly after, a dying bird with blood around it and coming out of its mouth asks him to put it out of misery then dies. The parakeet clan are overall creepy because they keep trying to eat them, and at one point they capture them and the main character is hanging from chains from his wrists against the wall but he escapes. Overall, not a good movie, let alone a good Ghibli so if you’re a big fan of Ghibli, I don’t recommend to watch it at the movies. Very disappointed and I hope this movie won’t make people view all other Ghibli movies as being this bad because they are not compared to this.