This 1997 movie, much admired as the crowning work of Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki and his Studio Ghibli, is now on release in the dubbed American version - although British critics were shown the subtitled original - and it emerges as a fervently inventive and imaginative legend about man’s collision with nature: medieval warrior Prince Ashitaka and his alliance with Forest Spirits and Wolf Gods against the early Iron Age profiteers.

I must admit to being agnostic about the animation: particularly the humans’ saucer-eyed moppet faces: but the story has simplicity and force, with captivating images and gutsy narrative ideas recalling Kipling, Ovid and Homer.

• Princess Mononoke is in UK and Irish cinemas from 17 October.