BELLE (2021) [Blu-ray]

Honestly, I really like this film. I saw it in theaters and it genuinely feels like a movie version of Beauty and the Beast made for a modern anime fan.The story is relatively similar, but it’s still completely all it’s own.Suzu, our protagonist, is living life through her alter ego of Belle on the fictional social network of “U.”Through Belle, Suzu finds the courage she lacks in reality to continue singing and making music like she used to love doing.All the while, thanks to Suzu’s best friend (manager) Hiro, Belle blows up pretty much overnight and gains a tremendous following.Thanks to this new found popularity, Suzu is then forced to deal with having to hide her true identity from everyone online and offline.Alongside this Suzu, also has to deal with regular day things like school, her peers and her home life.Amidst all of this though, Suzu continues to find solace in her music and even performs various concerts as Belle.Until one day, her concert is crashed by a dragon like figure known only as “Beast.”The only definitive traits on this mysterious figure being how brutal of a fighter he is and the tremendous amount of bruises on his back.Belle (Suzu) decides she wants to find out who this guy is not out of spite for ruining her concert, but out of curiosity.That is the general premise of the story’s set up.I hope you take a chance on this movie and enjoy it as much as I did.When I watched it, I watch it Dubbed in English.I have to say, Kylie McNeil’s casting as Suzu and Belle is phenomenal.The way she sang all the songs in this film are what captured me the most and made it so memorable.I have so much respect for GKids Films for putting so much effort their films and it really shows through in this movie.I would’ve seen this movie either way, due to owning most and having seen all of Mamoru Hosoda’s films.But, I can safely say this one is a good one and I’d recommend this one alongside others like Wolf Children, Boy and the Beast, Summer Wars, and Mirai.

Without going too far into the weeds, the movie is artistically interesting. I can't say that the animations weren't pretty. But that's pretty much the extent of my good opinions for the movie.The movie constantly is jumping time and pace, making the current setting always kind of a mystery. The characters are wholly unlikable and unrelatable. The conflicts that occur are unrealistic to the point of being meaningless. The themes are garbled nonsense.I feel like I just watched an adult man's very shallow understanding of Beauty and the Beast, teenage girls, and the internet. Despite being called Belle and being marketed as a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, there is almost no real retelling of the story. It was just a weird afterthought. Which didn't make a lot of sense.There is a part in this film where the protag, a teenage girl, is literally going to intervene in a real life domestic violence situation with the okay of her father and all of her adult mentors. And then the man, who is about to presumably beat his children to death, flees away because she... stares at him.And I'm not even going to get into the reddit moderators who use a green laser to dox people. I mean, this movie was absurd beyond measure. I was laughing through the entire thing.

I've been watching films by Mamoru Hosoda for a long time. In college I was watching The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. A friend showed me the Digimon Movie ages ago. Then I watched Wolf Children, a friend told me about The Boy and The Beast, and my wife and I bonded over Summer Wars. So please understand what I mean when I say...I think this might be his best film yet.Hosoda's films tend to swing either to the very, very Japanese mythological modern world crossover (Wolf Children, Boy and the Beast) or the technological mythos of Internet meeting modern youth (Digimon Movie, Summer Wars). But clearly there's a strong desire in his heart to somehow bridge the two and make people understand what it's like to live in a world at once ancient and modern. This just might be that film, that bridge between worlds.Other reviewers criticise the length or pacing of this film, and I'm sorry but that's really just not justified. When I watch Japanese drama, they are not in a rush to slam the plot and emotional payoff down your throat like American films directed and written by people high on crack. Think about the fourth Evangelion film with its slow sideplot of living in what might have been the last post-apocalyptic Japanese town (which Anno built out with a scale model). Japanese film-making is about craftsmanship, atmosphere, letting the story and characters breathe. So no, I don't think this film is slow. I think anyone who thinks it is needs to put away their cell phone and stop drinking quadruple shots of coffee and jolt cola and let a story sink in for a change. At any rate...Summer Wars was technically impressive but this film is ARTISTICALLY impressive. The virtual world of U is of course a successor to the world of OZ from Summer Wars (complete with flying whales) but while OZ was kind of sterile and everything was mostly primary colors and a whole lot of white, the world of U is in full color. You'll see some truly breath-taking imagery of castles and concerts and the computer city. Just breath-taking.The simple Avatars of OZ are also replaced with the upgraded ones in U and the title character is an example of the additional emotional richness provided by the artistic upgrade from the sheer effort put into the art design of this film. I cannot wait for the inevitable art book to come.Music is a tremendous part of this film because the title character is a virtual pop star. In the English dub you won't find an actor 'talking" their lyrics but rather the tender, trembling vocal first-steps of a person who conveys their feelings through their singing. Both as a narrative device and as just as great music it succeeds. Maybe you like the style of music, maybe you don't. But if you think it's poorly done, you're just wrong. Period. Becuase the voice actor is also singing the music, and there's about 1000% more emotion poured into it than any of the over-produced stuff by Disney. But I digress...The actual plot here is fantastic and it REALLY surprised me. The relationships in the real world are far from superfluous but rather essential to understanding and comprehending...well...EVERYTHING. There's an emotional core to everything that happens in the virtual world that's found in the real world. And it's hard not to be floored by the emotional sincerity found in both.I feel like this is the film that the last two Beauty and the Beast films (The French one and the Disney Remake) AND Ralph Breaks the Internet were trying to be. This is a MODERN version of Beauty and the Beast and it actually brings something new to the fairy tale (the hatred of the public on the Internet both for those who succeed and for those who are filled with dark emotions), with the most on-point wrapping of any Hosoda film yet.There was a scene in the real world that had me laughing out loud for a minute straight because of the social awkwardness and adorable emotional reactions, but there was a scene in the virtual world that had me tearing up.I bought this movie because I could own it forever for the price of two movie tickets and I have a projector in my living room. If you have a great home theater I suggest you do the same.My wife wants to own the Blu Ray too just because she loved it so much. I want to own the soundtrack. I see this film being a world-wide phenomenon among the crowd who understand it (the same young people who went to see Promare 8 times in the theater in my home town). This is a film that REALLY connects to the lives of today's youth and it's a beautiful beautiful film. Now where's my artbook???

Belle tells the story of a young adolescent girl named Suzu who has had a pretty traumatic childhood due to her traumatic past she is very shy and has lost all confidence in herself to sing until one day her best friend convinces her to create a account on the social media platform called U (a platform that advertises it self as you can’t restart your real life but you can become a new you on the U platform) to regain her confidence in singing. She signs up under the username Bell and instantaneously becomes a global star and thus our story begins.With beautiful animation and great storytelling this is a film that anyone who loves animation in general should watch at least once.My only complaint would be is if you own a 4K tv with a UHD player you might want to hold off purchasing the standard blu-ray release as a 4K release is supposed to come out by late 2022 by SHOUT! Factory if I had to take a guess on when it will be released it would probably be out by Nov-Dec for their holiday release (NOTE: that it will be a collectors edition like Weathering With You was so it will most likely be on the more pricey side)That being said Belle is fantastic and if you don’t own a 4K tv and player and don’t really care too much about collectors editions then yes I would highly recommend picking this movie up those who own 4k equipment and want the best of the best in terms of audio and visual and don’t mind paying the premium price for the collectors edition then I recommend wait for late 2022 when that release comes out.

Excellent video and audio quality. Lots of interesting extras.I paid a little more than if I had just picked it up off the shelf at Walmart.But overall I'm very satisfied.

Buena película. Si trae subtítulos al español. Todo en orden con la entrega.

It looks amazing, but the story is lacking. I would place this near the bottom of Hosoda's films.

Belle est une formidable adaptation libre de la belle et la bête. Je l'ai vu deux fois, et à chaque fois j'avais les larmes aux yeux. Les chansons sont d'une pureté, qu'elle soit en Japonais en anglais ou en français chaque version sont incroyable