\n\tSometimes there\u2019s a lesson to learn at the end of being spirited away \u2013 at least that\u2019s the case for two Japanese teenagers who find themselves navigating the realms between life and death.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tDirected by Isamu Imakake<\/a>, HS Picture Studios\u2019 Dragon Heart \u2013 Adventures Beyond This World centers on the journey of Ryusukue (voiced by Zach Aguilar in the English dub), a junior high school student living in Tokyo who visits his rural-dwelling teenage cousin Tomomi (voiced by Ren Holly Liu in the English dub), for summer vacation. While there, the two have an outing on the Anabuki River, where they are swept away by the rushing current and drown. At the bottom of the river, they find a mysterious old man who informs them of their deaths but says he can bring them back to life if they explore the spirit world and find their purpose in life.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tBased on the book of the same name by Ryuho Okawa, the founder of the Japanese religious group Happy Science, the film also tackles good vs. evil and the concept of ignoring the pleasures of the flesh to enrich the soul. Not only is this concept of life and death a lot to place on teenagers, but it was also a lot to take in for Imakake who took a three-year journey to bring this film to life. \u201cI had many spiritual journeys while creating this film,\u201d the director said via interpreter at Deadline\u2019s Contenders Film Los Angeles <\/a>event on Saturday. \u201cI wanted the characters to experience the world of the gods, and I hope people who watch this film are able to experience this deep happiness and feeling of euphoria and that they are able to go through this spiritual awakening.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThough confused by their new reality in the spirit world, the teenagers willingly decide to carry on where they are accosted by a series of demons such as doctors disfiguring patients, human traffickers and being plagued by war and terrorism. The idea from these different forms of hell, the director said, is all based on the \u201cnegative thoughts\u201d that humans carry inside of them. \u201cWe all have negative thoughts based on negative minds. This is a place these individuals go after their death. There are as many hells as there are evil minds,\u201d\u00a0said Imakake.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tHowever, things aren\u2019t all doom and gloom. Ryusukue and Tomomi do get moments of levity\u00a0as they travel from place to place on the back of a beautiful dragon. \u201cDragons are thought to be protectors of gods. As they ride the dragon to go through many spirit worlds, they are learning what is good and evil and they are able to see the rules that govern this world that divide good and evil. I wanted to portray the love that projects us all the time from the invisible world.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sometimes there\u2019s a lesson to learn at the end of being spirited away \u2013 at least that\u2019s the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[10308,84209,84282,146,84283,85,84284,46,84211],"class_list":{"0":"post-135393","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-awardsnews","9":"tag-contenders-los-angeles","10":"tag-dragon-heart-adventures-beyond-this-world","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-hs-pictures-studios","13":"tag-il","14":"tag-isamu-imakake","15":"tag-israel","16":"tag-novid"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}