Director: Masami Hata
Voice Cast: Tony Oliver, Ardwight Chamberlain, Mike Reynolds

If even you just have a casual knowledge of the motion picture industry, you probably know that with factors such as the rising cost of making movies, it's not enough to settle for the domestic box office take - producers must really depend on foreign box office take if they want to have a fighting chance of making their money back. That has resulted in more effort to make movies that not only cater to the domestic audience of any particular country, but also foreign audiences. But it has always been difficult to some degree to make movies that have complete worldwide appeal. With some kind of movies, it is even harder to do so. One example is with musicals. Since most people, when they are in the mood for music, tend to gravitate towards songs where the lyrics have been written in their native language, the prospect of listening to one song after another sung in a foreign language will seem like a tough job for the majority of listeners, even if they are provided subtitles for the songs' lyrics. Another example is with horror. What creeps out people in one particular culture doesn't necessarily raise shivers in another culture. For instance, many Asian horror movies that deal with vampires depict them as stiff, slow-moving, and hopping around from place to place instead of walking or flying. That may be okay for Asian audiences, but I'm confident that the average westerner would find the sight of these hopping vampires to be extremely silly. For that matter, many foreign cultures find modern-day western zombie movies to not be their thing, one reason being that their viewpoint of the possibility of the crumbling of society are much different. Another genre often hard to sell to other cultures is comedy. How do you translate puns from one language to another? How do you get other cultures to understand ribbings of particular pop culture references from another culture? How do you make sure the world audience understand subtle nuances from one culture to another, such as sarcasm?

Personally, I don't really mind if I don't "get" everything about a foreign movie - at the very least, I see an angle that is fresh from the usual domestic fare, and that gives the movie an interesting angle that may get me to investigate further how other countries do certain things. Anyway, getting back to what I was discussing, it is certainly extremely difficult to not only please all the potential audience, but do it on a regular basis. But that is not to say that it can't be done. There are a few formulas and genres that not only can cross multiple cultures, but have managed to do so for decades. Although I said that comedy can be hard to be made to be international, one type of comedy that has found a great deal of world-wide acceptance is slapstick humor. If you go way back to the heyday of Charlie Chaplin and work your way slowly to the modern era, you'll find a huge number of slapstick exercises that have tickled the funny bones of millions of people around the world. Another type of movie that has a much easier time crossing borders is the action genre - people getting beat up or shot to pieces can be appreciated in any country. That's why producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus made so many action movies for their Cannon Films company, because they knew it was a virtual guarantee they would make a profit on them. But there are also certain basic stories that find appreciation just about everywhere. Here is a question for you: Do you know what particular story has been made and remade the most around the world since the start of cinema? The answer is Cinderella. Of course, every country and filmmaker put their own spins on the story, but the basic elements can still be found in every version, and have proven to be very identifiable all over the world.

Another story that has proven to be very popular by world cinema is Romeo And Juliet. Contrary to popular belief, playwright William Shakespeare wasn't the originator of this story - like with most of his plays, he based it on the works of others - but he was certainly the one to really popularize the story, so much so that the story was imitated by countless other writers for the next few centuries. It was still a popular story by the time cinema was invented, so it seemed natural for filmmakers to make cinematic takes of the basic story. Like me, you have no doubt seen countless cinematic versions of this same story, and it no longer seems all that fresh. But when I came across Sea Prince And The Fire Child, the fact that it was both Japanese and animated gave it in my eyes some possible new life to this milked-out tale. In this telling of the story, we first learn that long ago, siblings Hyperia, the Goddess of Fire, and Oceanus, the God of Water were completely bonded together in love. (Incest was a big thing back then.) However, due to both getting planted in their minds seeds of distrust by Algorac, the jealous Lord of the Winds, both Hyperia and Oceanus went to war against each other. Just before both Gods and their followers were completely obliterated in their fighting, the God of all Gods managed to overpower Algorac and banish him, and then managed to create a cease fire between Hyperia and Oceanus. What followed for the next few years was a cold war of sorts, with always the danger of fighting breaking out again. Both Gods have children during this time, Hyperia having a daughter named Malta, and Oceanus having a son named Syrius. When both children reach maturity and are posed to take over the thrones of their realms, they happen to accidentally meet. As usual with this kind of story, there is an instant attraction between the two, and subsequently when Malta and Syrius have multiple secret meetings, they fall in love. As usual for this kind of story, the two have to deal with the feud between their kingdoms, but in this telling, there are additional complications, ranging from a traitor who wants to usurp Oceanus' throne to the threat of Algorac returning and causing misery for all.

That plot synopsis was what I was able to piece together after watching the entirety of Sea Prince And The Fire Child; the story doesn't unfold in such a straightforward manner, and that is just one of the issues I had with the story. But before getting into those issues, I will first mention what I did enjoy about the story. First, setting this particular Romeo and Juliet story not only before the time of mankind, but in both underwater and land worlds gives the backdrop an incredible amount of freshness. Even when the central plotting shows its weaknesses, the surrounding world and its features (and how they manipulate the characters) in this particular telling do capture your interest throughout that often you can look past the weak plotting. And while I will shortly get into what I thought was weak about the central plot, there were some things about it that I liked. This telling, for one thing, has some adult touches (such as a lesbian subplot) that prevent it from becoming strictly kiddie far. Also, there are several times when the characters do discuss with some depth as to why things are the way they are, and why it may be impossible to change things. It isn't just people hating each other for plot convenience - there are reasons why. And the movie concludes on a note that doesn't feel the least bit contrived, and seems just right connected to everything that happened previously to that point; I think even William Shakespeare would have approved. However, I am sure Billy-boy would have pointed out that right up to the last scene of the movie, the plot is quite a mess at times. At the beginning, the movie tries to set up the situation (the two Gods broken apart and going to war), but details like how the uneasy truce came about are really unclear and are not properly explained until about half the movie has passed.

With its running time of 108 minutes, the script for Sea Prince And The Fire Child is not necessarily too long for this type of story. But as it is, there are several scenes that run a little too long for their own good, as well as some moments that don't go into enough detail. For example, there are some jarring moments where characters are doing some specific action in one shot, and in the next shot they are doing something else entirely. Such moments as those may be the fault of the direction, but bigger storytelling problems include that the movie doesn't seem firm on the idea if Syrius is the son of Oceanus, that there are key characters that simply disappear for long periods of time (or entirely) with no explanation, and the big threat looming over both the Ocean and Fire worlds - the vengeful god Algorac - only gets a few tiny mentions before he starts to do his thing towards the end of the movie. When Algorac does start to raise his head to start an apocalypse, there is absolutely no identifiable character traits coming from him; even Godzilla in his films had more personality. The supporting characters do get to show their personalities reasonably enough, thank goodness. As for the two star-crossed lovers Syrius and Malta, I think they are competently portrayed as well. Yes, like many other movies of this kind, they do seem to fall in love a bit too quick, and they do have an immature side to them that can be a little annoying whenever it pops out. But they are portrayed as adolescents, and we in the audience can remember that when we were their age, we were often quick to think and be immature. Most important of all, they do have a passion for each other that is not only intense, it really shows that they care deeply about each other. But at the same time, they keep in their minds the responsibilities they have for their parents and other people in their worlds, and we clearly see how conflicted they often get. They become human in our eyes, despite being children of Gods depicted by ink and paint.

And on that note, I can now segue to the visual presentation of Sea Prince And The Fire Child. While director Masami Hata (Little Nemo), as mentioned earlier, did stumble with some of the storytelling elements of the movie, he makes the movie look great in almost every way. Except for the scheming supporting character of Oceanus supporter Mugwug, who quite frankly looks like a gigantic walking and talking turd, the character design looks both pretty pleasing and unconventional at times (Syrius is colored red despite not being from the Fire realm.) The animation of the characters and every other moving detail is well above average for a Japanese animated movie from this period - it is much smoother and fluid, and there are several complex animated sequences (such as the waves of the sea) that must have had the animators screaming at their desks. There's even one flashback sequence that is animated in a completely different art style, to great effect. The colors are also very bright and pop out of the screen. Masami not only makes the movie look beautiful, he also manages to give the movie a tone and feel that along with the visual presentation usually manages to get the audience to not think too much of the weaknesses of the script (which, by the way, he wrote.) Aided by a superb orchestral music score by Koichi Sugiyama (who also scored the Dragon Quest video game series), Masami gives the narrative an often sad edge, even if characters in a scene are living it up or declaring their love. It may sound depressing, but it isn't; we in the audience are constantly reminded that good things may not last, so we have to take what we can when we can. We can identify with that all too well, so we are hoping all the while that Syrius and Malta may succeed so that we may see a possibility of us succeeding. It is heavy stuff at times, which is why Sea Prince And The Fire Child may not be appropriate for very young children. But older children (and parents) who have appreciated enough movies that are not always cookie-cutter reassurances of good always triumphing should find this worth their time despite it not being perfect.

(Posted April 23, 2026)