Taro the Dragon Boy

Taro sets out for a distant lake to rescue his mother, who has been turned into a dragon. Along the way he meets witches, demons and the limit of his own strength; the story comes out of Japanese folk tale and rests on the novel by Miyoko Matsutani. The visual language was built by looking at Japanese painting and silk screens, so it trusts composition more than movement. Kirio Urayama directed it at Toei Doga and it opened on 17 March 1979. Urayama made social dramas from the sixties until his death in 1985, and this remained his only animated film. It was the first animated film imported into China from Japan. The keyword list in the record carries a line of Arabic, a tag that has leaked in from another language.