Magic Boy (1961)
Magically gifted boy Sasuke lives in peace, deep in the forest with his animal pals and Oyu, his elder sister. After their forest sanctuary is violated by a demon witch who devours one of Sasuke's animal companions, he vows vengeance. Leaving the forest, he sets out to master his magical gifts, making a pilgrimage to the home of the wizard Hakuunsai. While Sasuke learns the ways of magic, the demon witch terrorizes the countryside, and Sasuke works to complete his training in time.
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Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.
Don't listen to the negative reviews
A Brilliant Conflict
Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.
The movie is pure magic, just like Sasuke. The SFX are great, the plot is coherent and the fights! oh boy! It's a pleasure looking Sasuke materialize and de-materialize at will, or his flight scenes. The really humorous scene is when he gets to the prince's castle and gets sticked into the guard's sword until they let him pass and then he gets flying! With so much power who can put a parental figure on this boy? I ask. When I looked at this movie in my teens I loved it. I just would kill to see it edited and distributed in DVD and get it into my hands...(*sob*) However "Magic Boy" was a preview of the great potential of Asian cinema and anime production that there was yet to come.
I too saw ''Magic Boy'' on it's first release back in 1960. Being a fan of fantasy films, I was enchanted by the story and characters, though it was over 40 years before i saw it again. Alas, it lacks much of the magic I remembered. The story is just an excuse for the beautiful animation, and the characters are undeveloped. The motives of the witch, for instance, are left unexplained (yes, she's wicked, but why?) Many will think that my revised opinion is the result of seeing the film again not as a child, but as an adult. However, this is not true. Many films I enjoyed as a child still hold up wonderfully. ''Alakazam The Great'' for instance, is a superior Japanese animated feature.
Like Jerri LaPoint and Attila, I also saw this movie when I was very young (probably 1970). I know it as Magic Boy, because I saw it in my hometown theater for free every Saturday for about a year. I never got tired of it, and I often still think about it. It had a definite Zen feel to it, and I would give a lot to see it again. The film is classic Japanese animation, probably a lot rougher around the edges than Disney, with dubbed voices that are stiff but still quite likeable. And that's about as much as I remember about it from 32 years ago, other than I would absolutely love for my five-year-old son to see it when he turns six or seven. That gives me a little while to track it down, and any help would be appreciated. Another movie that affected me the same way was The Snow Queen (I see it titled as Snezhnaya koroleva on the IMDb site), which had a similar mixture of spine-tingling adventure, great villains and an emotional ending.
I saw this movie several times around 1963 (in the Philipines) when I was about 5 years old. The movie theater was just across the street from our house and I went there everyday (for free) and I was able to see a lot of movies even at such a young age. I have forgotten many of the movies that I saw then but this one remained etched in my mind. There was something enchanting about this movie and it really mesmerized me. I remember it was about a young boy on some kind of a mission and that he had magical powers. And that's all I remember about this movie!That's why I have not voted on this movie (yet!). I would really like to see it again but this is a very hard to find movie. Perhaps somebody out there can tell me where I can find or buy a copy. Any help is highly appreciated.