Given my recent expected disappointment at the #AadiPurush trailer, I feel obligated to talk today about what I feel is perhaps one of the best adaptations of the Ramayana tale to cinema. That being "Ramayana : The Legend of Prince Rama", an animated, Indo-Japanese production... 
Any reference of this movie is incomplete without first giving thanks & expressing gratitude to the efforts & passion of two men, Mr. Yugo Sako and Shree Ram Mohan Ji, both of whom are directly responsible for this cherished childhood memory and incredible adaptation...
Mr. Yugo Sako travelled to India over 60 times, devoted a decade of his life & over $13 million in his quest to bring the story of Lord Rama to the big screen. He visited India for the first time, in 1985 to film a documentary, "The Ramayan Relics," about an archaeological...
Excavation near Ayodhya. This was the occasion when he was first overcome by the story of Lord Rama, his conquest, his sacrifices and his legends. Sako would read Valmiki's Ramayana in Japanese & 10 different versions, all in Japanese. Sako worked with Ram Mohan & 450 artists...
And work began in earnest in 1990. Sako said ""Because Ram is God, I felt it was best to depict him in animation, rather than by an actor." Sako was aware of the gravity of his work, & the optics of him being perceived a foreigner depicting a Hindu work, & thus, he was...
Meticulous and vigilant. In an interview, he would go on to discuss his spiritual background and POV on his work and Hinduism as ""I trained to be a priest & am a Zen Buddhist formally. But after all these years, Hinduism is very familiar to me"...
"However, to be Hindu, you have to be born in a Hindu family, so I don't know whether Hindus would accept me as Hindu or not. So I am Buddhist, but in my mind I feel I am Hindu."
beliefnet.com/faiths/hinduis…
beliefnet.com/faiths/hinduis…
Another reference must be made to Vanraj Bhatia, the man who composed the songs that almost anyone who has watched the movie once either listens to again and again or recalls them word by word. The lyrics for these gems were given by P.K Mishra and Vasant Dev...
A personal favourite of mine being "Janani Main Raam Doot Hanuman", sung by the legendary Udit Narayan
The Hindi dubbed version of the movie featured a beloved actor who had already played the role of Lord Rama in a television series based on the Ramayana, and named after the same, Mr. Arun Govil. The voice for Lord Rama in the original English version was Mr. Nikhil Kapoor...
The movie was featured at the 24th International Film Festival, 1993, with opinions being stark and often not too sympathetic, given the context of the recent years.
indiatoday.in/magazine/socie…
indiatoday.in/magazine/socie…
Lastly, a passing reference must be made to the movie's just treatment of Raavan, the Lord of Lanka. The movie gives Raavan both regal features in his design & a demon-esque character, driven by ambition, pride & desire, arrogant to the very end, the opposite of Lord Rama.
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