Princess Raccoon (Tanuki Goten)

Seijun Suzuki, the wild man of Japanese cinema, has turned out incredibly stylized and freakishly beautiful movies since the 1950's. His latest opus, PRINCESS RACCOON is a musical, starring Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi. It tells the story of a young prince, banished from the palace, who falls in love with a tanuki princess. A what princess? A tanuki: a magical Japanese raccoon that can disguise itself as a human. Zhang Ziyi plays the tanuki princess and, needless to say, things get wild and wooly in a song-and-dance kind of way.

For Suzuki, making a movie is just downright fun. Silly and stunning, PRINCESS RACCOON is a wild ride. The King banishes his son because the magic bowl of soup says his son has become more handsome than he is. Characters break out into opera arias, bust out some hip-hop, sing to 80's era synthesizer disco beats. If Guy Maddin could sing in Japanese, PRINCESS RACCOON would be his latest song.