This earlier Miyazaki is (perhaps thankfully) less ambitious in scope than his later and more renowned work but, as a result, it has a greater warmth with engaging leads and several lively action sequences at the service of a somewhat dreary plot. The story deals with a reckless Italian pilot who has mysteriously been turned into a pig after his comrades have all perished during a mission; he still flies as a pig (hence the title) and spends his time chasing pirates of the air.
The bulk of the narrative is taken up by the rivalry between Porco Rosso (literally Crimson Pig) and an American flier who wants to be a movie star; this enmity involves Porco’s long-suffering bar hostess lover and his teenage female mechanic and which climaxes in a highly enjoyable aerial dogfight-cum-fistfight ending with both contestants black and blue; the pirates of the air, who in the opening sequences are shown clumsily kidnapping 15 schoolchildren, are all in love with Porco’s girl and are eventually reformed by his mechanic’s charms.
The film does have its more sober passages (especially when, in one of its visual highlights, Porco is forced by the girl to reminisce about that fateful mission) and even has a bittersweet ending – but it’s the overall genial tone which eventually endears it to the viewer.
The bulk of the narrative is taken up by the rivalry between Porco Rosso (literally Crimson Pig) and an American flier who wants to be a movie star; this enmity involves Porco’s long-suffering bar hostess lover and his teenage female mechanic and which climaxes in a highly enjoyable aerial dogfight-cum-fistfight ending with both contestants black and blue; the pirates of the air, who in the opening sequences are shown clumsily kidnapping 15 schoolchildren, are all in love with Porco’s girl and are eventually reformed by his mechanic’s charms.
The film does have its more sober passages (especially when, in one of its visual highlights, Porco is forced by the girl to reminisce about that fateful mission) and even has a bittersweet ending – but it’s the overall genial tone which eventually endears it to the viewer.