I feel the need to contrast the existing reviews, in particular Carlos' 3/10 rating. I've wrapped the rest of this in spoiler tags for anyone who wants to go in completely blind, but I don't think anything written in my comment should ruin the film.
This film isn't meant to be a documentary, nor is it a faithful adaptation of The Wind Has Risen. Instead, it draws narrative elements from several places, and I think the end result is an excellent story. It's misguided, in my opinion, to critize the film for a lack of "accuracy" when this was never the film's intention.
I can understand that one would have misgivings about a piece of Japanese media portraying WWII or related topics, but in no way does this film endorse Japan's actions. Having watched The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, Miyazaki's views on this topic are (to the extent that I'm familiar with them) entirely respectable. He appears to me to be a pacifist, and isn't himself entirely comfortable with his own admiration of the Zero planes' design due to their usage in the war.
The "controversy" section of the movie's wikipedia article does a good job summing up why I find it hard to consider this movie "nationalist" or anything like that. Quoted as of 2019-01-13:
"In Japan, The Wind Rises received criticism from both the political right[27] and from the Japan Society for Tobacco Control.[48] Miyazaki added to the controversy by publishing an article in which he criticized the proposal by Japan's centre-right Liberal Democratic Party to change the Constitution of Japan, which irritated nationalists.[27][48] Some commentators were unhappy that a warplane engineer was the film's protagonist.[48]
In an interview with the Asahi Shimbun, Miyazaki said he had "very complex feelings" about World War II since, as a pacifist, he felt militarist Japan had acted out of "foolish arrogance". However, Miyazaki also said that the Zero plane "represented one of the few things we Japanese could be proud of – [Zeros] were a truly formidable presence, and so were the pilots who flew them".[48]"
Review by SpekularBlockedParent2019-01-13T12:10:00Z
I feel the need to contrast the existing reviews, in particular Carlos' 3/10 rating. I've wrapped the rest of this in spoiler tags for anyone who wants to go in completely blind, but I don't think anything written in my comment should ruin the film.
This film isn't meant to be a documentary, nor is it a faithful adaptation of The Wind Has Risen. Instead, it draws narrative elements from several places, and I think the end result is an excellent story. It's misguided, in my opinion, to critize the film for a lack of "accuracy" when this was never the film's intention.
I can understand that one would have misgivings about a piece of Japanese media portraying WWII or related topics, but in no way does this film endorse Japan's actions. Having watched The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, Miyazaki's views on this topic are (to the extent that I'm familiar with them) entirely respectable. He appears to me to be a pacifist, and isn't himself entirely comfortable with his own admiration of the Zero planes' design due to their usage in the war.
The "controversy" section of the movie's wikipedia article does a good job summing up why I find it hard to consider this movie "nationalist" or anything like that. Quoted as of 2019-01-13:
"In Japan, The Wind Rises received criticism from both the political right[27] and from the Japan Society for Tobacco Control.[48] Miyazaki added to the controversy by publishing an article in which he criticized the proposal by Japan's centre-right Liberal Democratic Party to change the Constitution of Japan, which irritated nationalists.[27][48] Some commentators were unhappy that a warplane engineer was the film's protagonist.[48]
In an interview with the Asahi Shimbun, Miyazaki said he had "very complex feelings" about World War II since, as a pacifist, he felt militarist Japan had acted out of "foolish arrogance". However, Miyazaki also said that the Zero plane "represented one of the few things we Japanese could be proud of – [Zeros] were a truly formidable presence, and so were the pilots who flew them".[48]"
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_Rises#Controversy)