Common Sense Media Review
By Jose Solis
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Dark anime with scary creatures and a feminist message.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 13+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
Videos and Photos
Mononoke the Movie: Chapter III - The Curse of the Serpent
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's the Story?
MONONOKE THE MOVIE: CHAPTER III - THE CURSE OF THE SERPENT brings the Medicine Seller (Hiroshi Kamiya) back to the Ōoku, the emperor's inner palace, where hundreds of women live and where their rank depends on whether they give him a son. Yukiko (Atsumi Tanezaki), the emperor's highest-ranking wife, gives birth to the heir the court has waited years for, but things go awry when a serpent god shows up to claim women as part of an ancient curse. The Medicine Seller works to unravel the mystery, since he cannot use his sword until he understands what the creature is and why it came, while the emperor (Miyu Irino) pays the deaths little attention and Yukiko must decide how much her position is worth.
Is It Any Good?
Gorgeous woodblock-print animation outshines a muddled finale to the Mononoke trilogy. Chief director Kenji Nakamura and director Tomoaki Koshida build every frame of the film out of ukiyo-e, the Japanese woodblock printing behind Hokusai's great wave, and the visible paper grain and flat color give a tale of mythical creatures and ancient curses exactly the right register, so beautifully that the images occasionally pull attention away from the plot. Anyone who skipped the first two chapters will spend much of the film working out who these people are.
The argument lands anyway, since the Ōoku reduces women to their ability to produce an heir, and a supernatural horror story turns out to have more to say about the patriarchy people still live inside than its premise promised. The structure is where things come apart a bit, since the final stretch drags through a lesson tucked inside the lesson the film had already delivered, and none of it feels earned. Viewers who loved the first two chapters will enjoy seeing the Medicine Seller's story come to its end while everyone else will most likely stay for the beautiful animation.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about how Mononoke the Movie: Chapter III - The Curse of the Serpent builds its horror out of a system rather than a villain. What does the Ōoku forbid the women in it from saying, and what happens to grief that nobody will let a person share?
The Medicine Seller cannot act against a spirit until he understands what it is and why it came. What changes about a horror story when comprehension, rather than force, becomes the thing that resolves it?
The serpent kills without choosing to, acting on its nature. How should a person judge harm that comes from something that never decided to hurt anyone, and who does the film hold responsible instead?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming : September 29, 2026
- Cast : Hiroshi Kamiya , Haruka Tomatsu , Yôko Hikasa
- Directors : Kenji Nakamura , Tomoaki Koshida
- Studio : Netflix
- Genre : Anime
- Topics : Adventures , Fantasy
- Run time : 87 minutes
- MPAA rating :
- Last updated : September 30, 2026
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