Director Wes Anderson at the filming set. (Photo provided to China Daily)
All the dogs speak in English and the human characters speak in Japanese. Most of the human dialogue is deliberately not translated, as Anderson wanted the audience to concentrate more on the visual language of the film rather than focus on the subtitles.
"The movie is told from the perspective of dogs. Their barks are translated into different languages when the film is released in different countries. The dogs don't really understand human language. That's sort of a way to separate them too," explains Anderson.
In China, the Mandarin version sees actor Zhu Yawen and actress Song Jia cast as the voices of the two major canine roles, while the Japanese dialogue remains untranslated.
Speaking about the inspiration drawn from Japanese cinema, Anderson gives the names of the legendary Akira Kurosawa, and Hayao Miyazaki, known for a string of highest-grossing anime movies in Japan like Spirited Away (2001). He also cites the influence of Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) and Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), two Japanese ukiyo-e artists, which Anderson has absorbed into the movie.
"When we are talking about Miyazaki, it's always about how nature is portrayed and the theme of protecting nature is always a part of his movies. Even though our set (in Isle of Dogs) is a garbage island, it's still related to nature," says Anderson of the symbolism.
"We were also influenced both by what we read in the history books and what were on the front pages of the newspapers when we were writing the story," he adds.
Since the movie was shot using stop-motion, the Isle of Dogs crew reportedly had to make around 2,200 puppets and 250 handcrafted miniature sets for the production.
