--- title: "Porco Rosso" year: 1992 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/porco-rosso" fi1m_score: 81 critics_score: 74 critics_reviews: 8 published: "2026-09-17T06:25:22.241528+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T06:25:35.566456+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Porco Rosso (1992) Directed by Hayao Miyazaki · 1h 33m · MPA PG · Animation, Adventure, Fantasy **Fi1m score: 81** · Critics 74 from 8 reviews *In a sentence:* A pig, a red seaplane and a widow who sings; Miyazaki on holiday, and it suits him > Hayao Miyazaki’s film about a cursed air ace hunting pirates over the Adriatic is his most relaxed and his most grown-up, and the plot barely troubles it. We recommend it warmly, with the caveat that the ending is a cartoon and knows it. ## Synopsis The Adriatic, between the wars. Porco Rosso (Shūichirō Moriyama), once an Italian air force ace and now, for reasons nobody explains, a pig, makes his living shooting down air pirates from a red seaplane and collecting the reward. When the Mamma Aiuto gang kidnaps a party of schoolgirls from a liner, he is called in to get them back. He drinks at the Hotel Adriano, run by Gina (Tokiko Kato), who sings for the pilots and has buried three husbands, all flyers. The pirates hire an American hotshot, Donald Curtis (Akio Otsuka), to shoot him down. Porco’s plane needs work, and the only mechanic he trusts is in Milan, where the fascist police would like a word with him. ## Review Hayao Miyazaki made *Porco Rosso* after *Kiki’s Delivery Service*, and it began as a short meant to be shown to airline passengers. It grew into a 93-minute adventure about a former Italian air ace who has been turned into a pig and now flies a red seaplane over the Adriatic between the wars, shooting down air pirates for the reward money. It is the loosest film he has directed and the only one whose hero drinks, smokes and carries a past. We liked it a great deal, and not for the plot, which barely exists. The first ten minutes set the tone. Porco (Shūichirō Moriyama) lies in a deckchair in a cove with a magazine over his snout and lets the telephone ring. The Mamma Aiuto gang, meanwhile, are kidnapping a party of schoolgirls from a liner and cannot agree how many to take. The girls treat it as an outing and climb about the aircraft while the boss (Tsunehiko Kamijô) tries to look fierce. We laughed, because Miyazaki draws the pirates as large, stupid, decent men, and the dogfight that follows is played for pleasure rather than danger: planes bank and stall, engines cough, spray comes off the water in sheets. Kazu Hisamura’s production design gives the film three places to live: the cove; the Hotel Adriano, on an island reached by a pier, with a walled garden where Gina (Tokiko Kato) waits for men who mostly do not come back; and the Piccolo workshop on a Milan canal, all timber and pulleys. Atsushi Okui photographs the water in pale blues that darken towards evening, and sets the terracotta of the buildings against it. Joe Hisaishi’s score is piano and accordion, the sound of a café at four in the afternoon, and Kato herself sings “Le Temps des Cerises” in the hotel bar, and the bar goes quiet. Takeshi Seyama cuts the flying with room to breathe. The women run the picture. Gina has buried three husbands, all pilots, and Kato plays her with a tired good humour we have not met elsewhere in Miyazaki. Fio (Akemi Okamura), old Piccolo’s seventeen-year-old granddaughter, redesigns Porco’s aircraft herself because the men of the family have gone away to find work, and the workshop that rebuilds it is staffed by grandmothers and aunts. Piccolo (Katsura Bunshi VI) apologises for the arrangement. Porco pays the bill and stops complaining. Fio is the best thing in the film, one more in the line of Miyazaki girls who are competent before they are charming. There is a scene, told to Fio at night beside the plane, in which Porco remembers the war. It moved us more than we had expected. He describes a dogfight and what he saw afterwards: the fallen aircraft rising past him towards a pale band of cloud, hundreds of them, the pilots small and still in their seats. Miyazaki draws it as a white river across the sky, and Moriyama tells it in a flat, gravelly voice with no catch in it, which is why it lands. The film never says why Porco is a pig. He says he would rather be one than a fascist, and that is as close to an answer as we get. The flaws are those of a film that does not much care about story. The fascist secret police are introduced, chase Porco through Milan, and are then forgotten. Donald Curtis (Akio Otsuka), the American the pirates hire to shoot Porco down, is a good joke, a Texan who wants to act in pictures and then run for president, and he stays a joke. Gina’s story is left where it is. And the finale, which we will not describe, turns the air war into a brawl and the drawing goes deliberately silly. Miyazaki is telling us not to take it seriously, and after the cloud of pilots we rather wanted to. Against his own standards it is a small film, with none of the scale of *Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind* or [*Princess Mononoke*](https://film.one/film/princess-mononoke). Most critics rank it below his major work, and so do we, but we like it more than they seem to, because it is the one film in which he lets his love of aircraft show without disguise. Watch it in Japanese, with a drink you would not offer a child. *Fi1m score 81, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics like Porco Rosso, and the praise clusters on the same things: the colour of the animation and the seaplane dogfights over the Adriatic, which several reviews call the reason to watch. A number are struck by how much Miyazaki fits around a pig in a cockpit: pre-fascist Italy, aviation history, the men who came home from war, and women who are consistently smarter and more capable than the men around them. Comparisons run to Tintin and to Casablanca, with the hero cast as a gruff, decent Bogart figure. The reservations are mild and land on the story. Radio Times finds the adult plot flimsy and underdeveloped and misses the director’s usual charm, and Empire, though approving, thinks Miyazaki has made stronger films. The spread is narrow, with no negative notices; the warmest reviews come from critics who take the anti-war material seriously rather than treating it as a backdrop to the flying. ### Reviews we read (8) - **The Guardian** (80/100, inferred): Porco Rosso is an early Studio Ghibli film from Miyazaki about a pig who is an air ace turned bounty hunter in the Adriatic; the plot is secondary to the delightful, colourful animation and exhilarating seaplane flying sequences. The bizarre premise contrasts with the director's limpid style, akin to Tintin but with greater artistic depth that would later flower in films like Spirited Away. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2006/feb/03/dvdreviews.animation1) - **Time Out**, David Jenkins (80/100, inferred): The critic describes Miyazaki’s 1992 animation as wonderful, focusing on the pig pilot’s dogfights with air pirates in the Adriatic and its digressions into pre-fascist Italy, aviation history and gender equality. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/porco-rosso) - **Empire**, William Thomas (70/100, inferred): The critic calls it a solid Miyazaki film with an elegiac edge exploring disappointed masculinity through its pig-faced pilot protagonist and vintage plane action. It draws comparisons to The Quiet Man and The Incredibles but notes the director has made stronger films. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/porco-rosso-review/) - **Slant Magazine**, Chris Cabin (70/100, inferred): The critic praises the film's personal subtext on war survivors and Miyazaki's self-reflective themes, along with its vibrant animation, action sequences, and jovial yet contemplative tone. The disc's A/V transfer is excellent, though extras are skimpy. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/porco-rosso/) - **The New York Times**, Jeannette Catsoulis (Critic’s Pick): The critic praises this re-release of Miyazaki’s 1992 adventure as an irresistible, pastel-pretty yarn that blends fantasy and history, muting adult concerns like fascism with whimsical elements. She singles out the director’s feminism, noting how female characters are smarter, braver and more resourceful than their male counterparts. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/movies/porco-rosso-directed-by-hayao-miyazaki-review.html) - **Radio Times**, Sloan Freer (3/5): The critic praises the rich, imaginative animation and its vibrancy that appeals to all ages while faulting the adult storyline as flimsy, underdeveloped and lacking the director’s usual charm. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-8rpb2l/porco-rosso/) - **Eye for Film**, Anton Bitel (85/100, inferred): The critic praises the film as an animated prequel to Casablanca set in interwar Europe, with Porco himself as a gruff yet decent hero in the Bogart mold. Miyazaki is singled out for grounding the fantasy in meticulous period detail and realistic aerial sequences while delivering anti-war themes with broad appeal. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/porco-rosso-film-review-by-anton-bitel) - **The Skinny**, Zoe Crombie (85/100, inferred): The critic hails Porco Rosso as an anti-war masterpiece and outlier in the Ghibli canon for its 1930s Italian setting and morally ambiguous pig-man protagonist. They single out its evolution from a simple in-flight entertainment project into a complex meditation on fighting against a cursed world. [Read](https://www.theskinny.co.uk/film/opinion/id-rather-be-a-pig-than-a-fascist-30-years-of-porco-rosso) ## Details - **Director:** Hayao Miyazaki - **Director:** Hayao Miyazaki - **Screenplay:** Hayao Miyazaki - **Cinematography:** Atsushi Okui - **Editor:** Takeshi Seyama - **Music:** Joe Hisaishi - **Production design:** Kazu Hisamura - **Producer:** Toshio Suzuki, Yasuyoshi Tokuma, Matsuo Toshimitsu - **Cast:** Shūichirō Moriyama as Kurenai no Buta (voice); Tokiko Kato as Jina-sama (voice); Katsura Bunshi VI as Pikkoro-oyaji (voice); Tsunehiko Kamijô as Manmayuto no shachô (voice); Akemi Okamura as Fio Pikkoro (voice); Akio Otsuka as Donarudo Kâchisu (voice); Hiroko Seki as Bâ-chan (voice); Reizō Nomoto as Mamma Aiuto Gang (voice) - **Runtime:** 1h 33m - **Certificate (MPA):** PG - **Release (the US):** 22 February 2005 - **Genres:** Animation, Adventure, Fantasy - **Budget:** $9 million - **Box office:** $45 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LRyNwYg1f8 ## Where to watch in the US - HBO Max: streaming - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Hulu: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $11.99, sd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, AZ, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IS, IT, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, SK, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Annecy Cristal for a Feature Film 1993: Annecy Cristal for a Feature Film (won) ## If you liked this - *The Wind Rises* (2013), Fi1m 77: Miyazaki’s other aircraft film, without the pig and with the war much closer. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-wind-rises.md) - *Casablanca* (1942), Fi1m 93: The gruff man, the woman who sings, the fascists at the door; the original. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/casablanca.md) - *Only Angels Have Wings* (1939): Hawks’s pilots fly the Andes and drink to the ones who don’t come back. - *The Great Waldo Pepper* (1975): George Roy Hill’s barnstorming pilots, real biplanes, and a hero who lies about his war. - *Only Yesterday* (1991): Ghibli’s other film for adults, about a Tokyo office worker remembering being ten. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/porco-rosso