Ask Lemmy

“No cuts” come from someone at Ghibli being so pissed about the butchering that they gave Weinstein a fake katana to let them know not to fuck with Mononoke.

Suzuki knew of a small, hard-to-find store in Tokyo hidden away underneath the train tracks between Shinbashi and Yurakucho. It was where Japanese film studios bought the realistic-looking weapons used in Japanese samurai movies. Suzuki picked out a sword there and brought it with him to New York for our meeting with Harvey. It was a very convincing replica of a Japanese samurai sword. It was realistic in every detail except that the blade was not sharp, which you could not tell unless you got a good, close look at it.

These were still the days when you could bring a samurai sword with you in your carry-on luggage on a commercial flight from Tokyo to New York. Suzuki presented the sword to Harvey in a conference room full of horrified Miramax employees. One of them later approached me and said, “You gave Harvey a SWORD? Are you CRAZY?”

When Suzuki presented Harvey with the sword, Suzuki shouted in English and in a loud voice, “Mononoke Hime, NO CUT!”