Rex: A Dinosaur’s Story enjoyed its screening for the 19th edition of JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film.
It was long after producer Haruki Kadokawa took over his father’s company that by the 1990s, and with the approaching momentum of a movie like Jurassic Park, that he sought to ride the dino wave of movie fandom at the time with his own directorial contribution, Rex: A Dinosaur’s Story. Kadokawa directed and co-wrote the project based on an in-house manga by Masanori Hata, and while the word is that Rex failed to live up to box office expectations, the film continues to find an audience to this day.
Rex: A Dinosaur’s Story is certainly a film that tugs right at the heartstrings as we meet Chie (Yumi Adachi), a little girl who lives on a remote farm with her paleontologist father, Akira (Tsunehiko Watase), and grandmother, Sanae (Mitsuko Kusabue). Interestingly enough, both siblings are really the only two people she talks to in life, aside from the family’s horse and golden retriever, and as the film divulges, whereas going to school and socializing with anyone is simply not an option.
The tension couldn’t be more extant though, as Chie’s mother, Naomi (Shinobu Otake) is summoned by Akira’s colleagues to come to Akira’s lab and apply her embryonics expertise to help hatch a T-Rex egg discovered with the help of an Ainu elder. Alas, Chie’s excitement at a reunion with mom is met with a version of her that’s as career-focused as feared – a reminder of Chie’s own terse and detached behavior as a coping mechanism for Naomi’s absence.
Little does anyone know at this juncture that the little hatchling is about to change all their lives with the arrival of Rex, a budding young dinosaur whose new chance at life brings Chie face to face with the role of surrogate motherhood, but an unflinching chance to save its life when corporate marauders threaten to take Rex. What follows is a race against time (and snowmobiles) that will determine Rex’s fate, but the chances of Chie and Naomi truly finding each other.
Rex: A Dinosaur’s Story bares all the tropes one could ask for in a film targeted to general audiences, with a little bit extra. It’s lighthearted, bittersweet and heavy at times, but never too dire in the moments that matter. Adachi’s lead role is one that’s headstrong and admirably self-reliant – even with the realization of where that comes from – and greatly in tune with her nurturing instincts as a result. In scenes involving Chie with her parents, Rex: A Dinosaur’s Story isn’t afraid to illustrate the dissenting boundaries established in the trauma of separation between mother and daughter, at one point with Naomi’s own words and logic used against her when she instructs Chie by another character to do something. That was one heck of a moment, even if briskly played.
The film’s other star and main titular attraction comes by way of FX maestro Carlo Rambaldi. For this, we get a performance out of Rex that is entirely practical effects-driven to couple with some of the film’s lateral visuals and spectacle. Rex comes in a few different sizes for the film’s timeline which spans a few months and we watch the young T-rex grow from the size of a handbag to that of a child with a really big tale and a Dino-sized temperament with a childlike demeanor. It’s cute as hell, I think.
Watase’s Akira is a loving father who often chimes in with reflections on theory pertinent to both dinosaurs and parenthood, which makes for interesting table talk as he posits some ideas that I’ve never heard regarding what caused the dinosaurs to die out apart from a big fat asteroid hitting Earth 66 million years ago (gosh, what a time it must’ve been to be alive). The movie follows along as Chie efforts to raise Rex herself under Akira’s and Naomi’s supervision while managing the opportunistic momentum of their business partners looking to capitalize off of Rex’s fame until this arc of the story reaches a boiling point, which then results in Chie running away from home with Rex, and that’s where the adventure grows even bigger.
The movie also introduces a character named Kenta (Yuta Yamazaki) who learns of Chie’s situation when she arrives in a town during Christmas celebrations where she and Rex try to fit in; There’s a scene where Chie and Rex are hitching a ride and it’s the most obvious thing but you can’t really hate the silliness of it either. Soon enough, Chie and Rex find themselves on the run from a small squad of black trenchcoats being commanded by one of Akira’s former cohorts who now aspires to take Rex for his own personal gain, and the pursuit soon escalates into an exiciting snowmobile chase like something fresh out of a Bond flick. This is pretty much what we get out of Kenta’s minimal presence in the film which still bodes as a hearty addendum to Chie’s progression, and a reminder that she still has friends in the world if she’s willing to let them in.
As for Chie and Naomi, the time it takes for their arc to come full circle doesn’t have much of a visible throughway, so any development or evolution we see on Naomi’s part is more suggestive than anything. We can really only wonder that maybe the conversations we see are what she’s pondering when she’s not on screen while the rest of the movie plays out. Beyond that, the rest is a testament to Chie’s belief in magic and miracles, her hopes and dreams in a story that’s as piquant and beautiful as one might imagine.
Rex: A Dinosaur’s Story is an exorbitant and fun family flick, and it’s more of the kind of Christmas movie I wish I grew up with as a kid. I couldn’t get enough of the Holiday season and Holiday movies were totally my thing wayback when, so I love the effort Kadokawa put into making this film as heartfelt as it is for me, personally. That said, I may be in my forties, but you’re never too old to cry when the moment calls for it, and at least for me, Rex: A Dinosaur’s Story calls.