Perils of a Retelling: Making of “Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama”

A few months ago, the trailer for Adipurush dropped, and people on the internet promptly proceeded to rip it apart. For those who lack the context, Adipurush is supposed to be a retelling of the Indian epic Ramayana. But the trailer has rubbed most of its audience the wrong way. The discourse around Adipurush and the challenges of retelling a religious epic reminded me of another retelling of Ramayana, made some three decades ago. I’m of course talking about Yugo Sako’s Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama—an animated feature film that was an amalgamation of Indian culture and Japanese aesthetics.

The Poster of Yugo Sako’s Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama. Source: Wikimedia Commons

The first question that comes to mind is why? Why did a Japanese director make a movie about an Indian epic? To answer that, we have to go back a decade further to 1983, when Yugo Sako was working on a documentary called The Ramayana Relics. The documentary focused on an excavation near Allahabad (now Prayagraj) led by the famous Indian archaeologist Dr. BB Lal. That was when Yugo Sako first came across the story of Ramayana.

The story moved him immensely, and he went on to research further about the Ramayana. He read about ten different versions of the epic in Japanese and decided he wanted to adapt the story into a movie. Sako felt that the grand fantastical and mythical nature of the story would not get the justice it deserves in the live-action format, and thus he decided to adapt it into animation.

Yugo Sako’s dream to adopt an Indian epic turned into an international cultural collaboration of its kind. He found his counterpart in Indian animator Ram Mohan, who collaborated with his Japanese counterparts to ensure that Indian culture, clothing, traditions, and practices are properly represented in the animation format.

However, a misunderstanding soon arose, where certain public groups in India misconstrued Sako’s intention to adapt the Ramayana as him making a new Ramayana. Moreover, since animation was considered a juvenile medium in India, it added to the confusion. They protested on the grounds that the Ramayana was a national heritage and Sako’s attempt at adapting it can be considered degrading. Sako had to clarify his intentions to the Indian government and convince them that animation was a serious art form in Japan. After a lot of back and forth, Sako did get permission to produce the film in India.

But the very next year, the Ayodhya dispute reached its height. This put to rest any lingering hope of producing the film in India and it was axed for good. With no hope left in India, the film was finally produced in Japan, with Indian artists flying back and forth to contribute to the film. After the hard work of 10 years, the English version of the movie with Sanskrit songs was screened for the first time during the International Film Festival of India in 1993.

Soon it was dubbed in Hindi, with iconic actors like Arun Govil (famous for portraying Ram in Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayana) voicing Ram, Shatrughan Sinha as the narrator, and Amrish Puri as the villain Ravana. Still, it was not released on a large scale and was reduced to being released on Cartoon Network as the Ram Janambhoomi Movement was at its peak and the movie could add fuel to the fire.

Over the years the movie has garnered a separate fanbase for itself. The film was also re-released in India as part of the fifth Japanese film festival in 2022, ten years after Yugo Sako’s death in 2012. The merit of the film lies not only in its respectful depiction of indigenous culture but also in utilising Japanese techniques and aesthetics to further alleviate the epic nature of a deeply Indian story and make it more accessible.