Why is the “Legend of Prince Rama” crucial?
Your favourite 90’s kid childhood movie “The Legend Of Prince Rama” is coming back to theatres in October but do you know why it was banned & why it’s so important for us?
Here’s the tea.
In the 1980s (or earlier), Japanese director Yugo Sako got inspiration for the film after reading the epic while shooting a documentary (The Ramayana Relics) on the same subject on some excavations in India.
Since Ram is such a divine figure, he felt a live action film couldn’t do him justice & he had to go the animation route, teaming up with legendary Indian designer & animator Ram Mohan & Koichi Sasaki.
His team of ~ 450 artists blended Japanese Manga, the realistic Indian art style of famous Raja Ravi Verma, and Disney’s Western approach to create a gorgeous story that is pretty much true to its source in the Valmiki’s poetic telling of the story.
The English version was released first in 1993 with the Hindi dub coming later, featuring voices from Rahul Bose (Bharat), Cyrus Broacha (Angada) & Amrish Puri (Ravana), as per the Wikipedia page.
It was monumental for Indo-Japan relationships but while the Indian Government was initially supportive of it, they backed out due to political pressure, leaving Japan’s Nippon & TEM Co. to fund it independently.
But while the film was screened in film festivals in India, Vancouver & around the world, also being broadcasted on TV by Pogo & Cartoon Network, right-wing groups fought against it being released in cinemas, citing that Gods shouldn’t be shown as cartoon & that it wasn’t appropriate for a foreign artist to use our culture’s epics.
It has been having special screenings since 2022 & finally the 4K remastered version is finding its way into Indian theatres on 18th October 2024.
This is important because we need artists to show our epics & stories to the world & encourage imagination, not stop it.