Porco Rosso

In the 1930s, Porco Rosso, an Italian World War I fighter ace and freelance bounty hunter, fends off an attack on a ferry liner by airborne pirates. Porco treats himself to dinner at the Hotel Adriano, which is run by his friend Gina.

At the hotel, the heads of the pirate gangs are contracting Curtis, an arrogant and ambitious American ace, to assist them in their next attacks. Curtis falls in love with Gina on the spot, but is frustrated to see his declarations rebuffed and her affection for Porco. After successfully executing a pirating mission, Curtis tracks down Porco, who is flying to Milan to have his plane serviced, and shoots him down as he experiences an engine outage, claiming to have killed him. Porco survives, though his plane is heavily damaged. Porco continues the trip by train with the remains of the plane, much to the irritation of Gina, who reminds him that there is a warrant for his arrest in Italy.

Porco arrives discreetly in Milan to meet Piccolo, his mechanic. He learns that Piccolo's sons have emigrated to find work elsewhere due to the Great Depression, and much of the engineering will have to be carried on by his young granddaughter Fio. Porco is initially skeptical of Fio's abilities as a mechanic, but after seeing her dedication in the repair project he accepts her as a competent engineer. Once Porco's plane is finished, Fio joins him on his flight home, with the justification that if the secret police arrest the team, they can say that Porco forced them to help and took Fio as a hostage. Stopping off to refuel on the way, Porco discovers that the new fascist government is beginning to hire seaplane pirates for their own use, thus putting him out of business.

Back at the Hotel Adriano, Curtis proposes to Gina but she turns him down, saying that she is waiting for Porco Rosso. Upon returning home, Porco and Fio are ambushed by the pirates, who threaten to kill Porco and destroy his plane. Fio talks them out of it, but Curtis appears and challenges Porco to a final duel. Fio makes a deal with him declaring that if Porco wins, Curtis must pay off his debts owed to Piccolo's company, and if Curtis wins, he may marry her.

That night, while preparing shells for the dogfight, Porco tells Fio a story from World War I. Two days after Gina's first wedding to his friend Bellini, his squadron was attacked by Austro-Hungarian aircraft. Overwhelmed and unable to save his fellow pilots he entered a cloud to evade his pursuers. He recalls blacking out and awakening to find himself in complete stillness above the clouds, with a silver band shimmering high in the distant sky. Allied and enemy aircraft, flown by the airmen who died in the dogfight—Bellini included—rise out of the cloud and fly upward towards the band, ignoring him. Porco soon sees that the band is in fact thousands of planes flying together. He blacks out again, and awakens flying low over the sea, alone. As she falls asleep, Fio (and the viewer) briefly see Marco's true face instead of the pig.

The next day, the duel is arranged and a large crowd gathers to observe. The indecisive and long dogfight between Porco and Curtis soon devolves into a bare-knuckle boxing match when both planes' machine guns jam. As they fight, Porco accuses Curtis of being a womaniser, but Curtis responds that he is worse; Fio adores him and Gina is only interested in him. This comes as such a shock to Porco that Curtis is able to knock him down, only for Porco to be saved by a pirate referee signalling the end of a round. The fight ends with both combatants knocking each other out and falling under the shallow water. Gina arrives and calls out to 'Marco' (Porco), who rises first and is declared the winner. She warns the crowd that the Italian air force has been alerted and are on their way, and invites everyone to regroup at her hotel. To Gina's frustration, Porco hands Fio over to Gina, requesting that she look after her, and turns away. Just before Gina's plane takes off, Fio leans out and gives Porco a kiss.

As the crowd leave, Porco volunteers to lead the air force away and invites Curtis to join him. Curtis reacts with surprise and asks Porco to turn around, suggesting that—like Fio—he had briefly seen Marco's true face. Fio narrates that in the end Porco outflies the Italian air force and is never hunted by them again; Fio herself became president of the Piccolo company, which is now an aircraft manufacturer; Curtis became a famous actor; and the pirates continued to attend the Hotel Adriano in their old age. She does not divulge whether Gina's hope about Porco Rosso was ever realized, saying it is their secret. However, a red plane can be seen docked by Gina's garden as the jet flies over the hotel.

After the credits, a familiar red seaplane appears soaring in the sky before disappearing into the clouds.

The Walt Disney Pictures dub has Susan Egan dub over Madame Gina's singing, but the Japan Airlines dub retains Tokiko Kato's Japanese singing.

Additional voices

• Japanese: Mahito Tsujimura, Minoru Yada
• English:
  • Japan Airlines dub: Faith Bach, Barry Gjerde, Greg Dale, Patrick Harlan, Lynn Eve Harris, James Keating, Clay Lowrey, Jeff Manning, Rumiko Varnes
  • Walt Disney Pictures dub: Jack Angel, Michael Bell, Jeff Bennett, Earl Boen, Cameron Bowen, Dee Bradley Baker, Rodger Bumpass, Corey Burton, Jennifer Darling, Debi Derryberry, Ashley Edner, Bobby Edner, Paul Eiding, Greg Ellis, Bill Farmer, Pat Fraley, Brian George, Tom Kenny, Sherry Lynn, Tress MacNeille, Mickie McGowan, Laraine Newman, Rob Paulsen, Bradley Pierce, Phil Proctor, Deanna Russo, Chelsea Smith, Jim Ward

Fio and Porco

The film was originally planned as a short in-flight film for Japan Airlines based on Hayao Miyazaki's manga The Age of the Flying Boat, but grew into a feature-length film. The outbreak of war in Yugoslavia cast a shadow over production and prompted a more serious tone for the film, which had been set in Dalmatia. The airline remained a major investor in the film, and showed it as an in-flight film well before its theatrical release.[3] Due to this, the opening text introducing the film appears simultaneously in Japanese, Italian, Korean, English, Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, French, and German. Telecom Animation Film Co., Ltd. helped animate the film.

Porco Rosso is one of the few films directed by Hayao Miyazaki in which the historical and geographical settings are clearly defined and where most of the story could have happened in the real world. Marco is an Italian hero from the First World War and is shown fighting against Austro-Hungarian fighter planes in a flashback sequence. The story is set in Milan, the Adriatic Sea east coast between Dalmatian and Kvarner islands, and a fictionalized city of Fiume after its annexation to fascist Italy and Northern Italy. The concealed beach Porco uses as a hideout bears a strong resemblance to Stiniva, an inlet on the southern side of the Croatian island of Vis.

Porco makes statements of his being anti-fascist, quipping during one scene that "I'd much rather be a pig than a fascist". Miyazaki shed light on the political context of the making of the film in an interview with Empire. He reflects that the conflicts that broke out during the film's production (such as those in Dubrovnik and elsewhere) made Porco Rosso a much more complicated and difficult film.[4]

Evident historical and political realism aside, at least one scholar has argued that the film's more overt historical references can be understood as representative of wakon yōsai (Jp; "Japanese spirit, Western learning")—a tendency, since the Meiji period, for Japanese artists to paint Europe as spectacular, while simultaneously maintaining the distance necessary to preserve a distinct sense of Japanese identity. "In Porco Rosso," states academic Chris Wood, "Europe is tamed, rendered as a charming site of pleasurable consumption, made distant and viewed through a tourist gaze."[5]

The fictional "Piccolo" aircraft company depicted in the film is based on the Italian aircraft manufacturers Caproni and Piaggio. The jet shown in the last scene is very similar in concept to the Caproni C-22J, an aircraft designed by Carlo Ferrarin, a designer for Caproni, whose name is notably used in the film for Marco's Air Force pilot friend. The jet-amphibian also has a V-tail, slightly reminiscent of the Magister jet trainer. The Savoia-Marchetti S.55, Fiat C.R.20 and Macchi M.39 are featured in the movie.[6]

Porco's air-force friend Ferrarin was inspired by the Italian Air Force pilot Arturo Ferrarin who flew with an Ansaldo SVA.9 from Rome to Tokyo in 1920.[7] Additionally, the Caproni Ca.309 light reconnaissance aircraft, known as the "Ghibli", was the namesake for Miyazaki's and Takahata's animation studio.

Porco's plane is named after the Savoia S.21, but is based on the Macchi M.33.[8] While in Piccolo's engine shop, the engine to be used in the Porco's rebuilt Savoia S.21 also has the word "Ghibli" visible on its rocker covers—in design it is a narrow-angle V-12 engine, similar in form to racing engines of the period. Piccolo mentions that it was used in a racing aeroplane for the Schneider Trophy race in the year before.

In the early 1930s, Italian seaplane designers set world speed records (such as the Macchi M.C.72 designed by the Italian airplane designer Mario Castoldi). One of the test pilots killed during the attempt to set the speed record was named Bellini, the name given to Porco's pilot friend in the film. Italian top fighter aces Francesco Baracca and Adriano Visconti also appear in the film.[6]

Marco Pagot, the name of the main character, is also a homage to the Pagot brothers, pioneers of Italian animation (Nino and Toni Pagot were the authors of the first Italian animated feature film, The Dynamite Brothers, and his son and daughter Marco and Gi Pagot[9] were Miyazaki's collaborators in the production of Sherlock Hound).

Meanwhile, the character of Curtis is likely to have been named after the American aviation pioneer Glenn Hammond Curtiss who, along with the Wright Brothers, founded the Curtiss-Wright Corporation. Curtis' airplane is a Curtiss R3C, which was built for the 1925 Schneider Cup race (which Porco refers to when he first meets Curtis). His character is also an oblique reference to Ronald Reagan, in that his ambitions lie not only in Hollywood, but also the Presidency. The rest of Curtis' character appears to come directly from the adventure film heroes portrayed by Errol Flynn at this time—indeed, they share a jaw line—including his buccaneering derring-do, willingness to fight, and overall demeanour combined with romantic ardour.

Miyazaki revisited the theme of aviation history in his 2013 film The Wind Rises.

Porco Rosso
Soundtrack album by Joe Hisaishi
Released	July 22, 1992
Label	Tokuma

All tracks are written by Joe Hisaishi.

The film was released in Japan on July 18, 1992. The first English dub was released on Japan Airlines flights in the 1990s. The French dub starred the voice of Jean Reno as the film's title protagonist. Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released Porco on DVD on February 22, 2005 and on Blu-ray on February 3, 2015, both with a new English dub featuring the voices of Michael Keaton, Cary Elwes, Susan Egan, and Kimberly Williams-Paisley. GKIDS re-released the film on DVD and Blu-ray on November 21, 2017.

In 2011, Miyazaki said that he wanted to make a follow-up anime to the 1992 original film if his next few films following Ponyo were successful. The film's working name was Porco Rosso: The Last Sortie; it was to have been set during the Spanish Civil War with Porco appearing as a veteran pilot.[20] Miyazaki was to write the film, but Hiromasa Yonebayashi was to direct.[21] The studio has since indicated that the sequel is not in their current plans.

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Porco Rosso.

• Official website
• Porco Rosso page at Nausicaa.net
• Porco Rosso (film) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• Kurenai No Buta at The Big Cartoon DataBase
• Porco Rosso at IMDb
• Porco Rosso at AllMovie
• Review at THEM Anime