Tales from (Netflix Instant Watch)

An omen at sea foreshadows the death of the king of the land, which happens at the hands of his young son, Arren. Arren takes his father's sword and joins up with a wizard named Sparrowhawk. Arren sees a young girl, whose face is scarred by a burnmark on one side, being harassed by a group of men threatening to sell her into slavery. His rescue of her is performed in a way that makes her doubt very much that Arren believes in the sanctity of life at all. Her name is Therru, and Sparrowhawk and Arren end up staying in the same farmhouse where she lives with the woman who raised her, Tenar, who is the local medicine woman. The villain of the story, one Lord Cob, sends his henchmen to capture Tenar and bring her to his castle in an effort to lure in Sparrowhawk. Instead, Arren and Therru are the rescue party. Arren falls under Lord Cob's control and is forced to fight Sparrowhawk when he arrives. It seems Lord Cob has discovered the key to immortality, and our heroes threaten that.

For a long time, authoress Ursula K. Le Guin had been turning down offers to adapt her stories for TV or movies, because she felt that none of them would do her work justice. But she thought if anyone could, it would be Studio Ghibli. She had been led to believe that Hayao Miyazaki, himself, was going to oversee the project. Instead, he turned it over to his son, Goro. Le Guin, after seeing the film, thought that it was good cinema, but she said it wasn't what she had written. I've never read the Earthsea stories, so I can't make any comparisons. But while it certainly does have the Ghibli "look," it also seems to be lacking the warmth that so many of Hayao Miyazaki's best films have in spades. Maybe, with experience, Junior will learn to do better. It's still a fun, if forgettable, watch, though.-Walt