Zarxrax wrote:

Something I thought was relevant to the conversation:
Last night I watched the movie "The Adventures of Milo and Otis". I had seen it back when it came out in theaters when I was a little kid. An innocent kid's movie, right?
I was really shocked by the contents of this film. The animals were very clearly put into some dangerous and extremely scary situations. After a quick google search, I saw that this was actually a westernized (and toned down) version of a Japanese film, 子猫物語。
It was rumored that more than 20 kittens were killed during the filming. But even if that's not true, there is still some pretty sick stuff in there.

Created in Japan, but also accepted and profited from in the west.

Wow, I never knew that movie was originally Japanese. Anyway, after my examples of Korea's The Isle and Old Boy, these aren't really helping East Asia's cause (and of course the West for profiting from the crimes).

After doing my own Google search, it would appear that the Western localised movie had several deleted scenes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goix8a6xMok
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2W_UbTAaw8

While the original Japanese version had even more deleted scenes, or rather, the deleted scenes were different and didn't make it to the Western release in the first place.

Based on my research so far the results are: Inconclusive. Some people say no animals were harmed during the making of the film (or there was no proof that there was) while others say there definitely was. Even if the bear had no claws (no proof either), I'm sure it could still do some damage slapping the pug and pinning the dog to the ground as it did, considering its size and weight.

Unfortunately, since the movie was made more than 20 years ago, it would be hard to prove either way. Of course, while the burden of proof is on the person who makes the claim (animals were harmed while making the movie), it is hard to completely dismiss it since there is a possibility that animals were harmed, a not unreasonable possibility particularly in this case since we are talking about Japan 20 years ago and laws regarding animal cruelty during movies (or any other law for that matter) may have changed since then.

All we can do is hope that animal rights in Japan and elsewhere continues to improve.

Maybe I can use this opportunity to track down the original Japanese version of the movie and see what the original Japanese text has to say about whether animals were harmed in the movie...

Last edited by qwertyytrewq (2011 December 28, 9:16 am)

whoever decided it would be a good idea to chuck a cat off a cliff into the sea ought to be prosecuted, really. That's sick.