Princess Mononoke has, perhaps, the best opening 5 minutes of any movie that I’ve seen. I can’t remember any other movie, capturing my attention so completely, so quickly. There’s a lot of reasons for why this is; like the awesome background music; but I want to focus on the most important aspect: the writing. To be clear I’m talking about the English dub version so forgive me if the original Japanese does something differently.

We start with a narrator setting up the story. This technique can sometimes fall flat because it’s basically all telling and no showing. But Princess Mononoke’s narrative intro is written very well. We are not overwhelmed by too much exposition. Instead, the narration focuses more on setting up the mood.

A lot of movies try to hook you with a fast-paced action sequence as the opening scene, but it never really works because we don’t know anything about the characters. We have no reason to care. Especially when combined with shaky cam and fast edits, it leaves the viewer waiting for the action sequence to end so that the story can begin.

Princess Mononoke takes the time to set up the mood through the narration. Then, after a quick title card, we get to see our hero, Ashitaka. He’s riding a red elk! Which is interesting. All of his actions are super precise. Just a few seconds of watching him and we know he’s an extremely competent character. Humans appreciate competency. That’s why we like to watch exceptional sportsmen and craftsmen. If you’ve ever seen one of those videos of street food vendors who cook delicious looking food, very fast, you know what I’m talking about. They have no wasted motion. Every movement is precise and accurate. Ashitaka evokes this kind of feeling throughout this opening fight sequence.

We meet three girls who tell him that there’s something strange in the forest. All the animals and birds are gone. He tells them to head to the village while he heads to the watch tower.

There’s a fairly long sequence of emptiness here, before the action begins. Even the music dies down. This builds the tension. The slowing down of the pacing almost to a stop, creates a wonderful contrast with the action that follows.

We’re only two and half minutes in, but we’re already hooked. We know enough to care for Ashitaka and therefore the fight that follows engages us. This action sequence builds on his competence as a fighter. The way Ashitaka nocks the arrow as soon as he sees something in the forest; the way he uses his brain, and shoots an arrow next to Yakul, the elk, to help him unfreeze and escape the demon; to the way he restrings his bow while waiting for Yakul to come to him; it’s all like watching Roger Federer or Messi.

We also get to understand his personality and the kind of world we’re in. Ashitaka doesn’t attack the demon right away. Instead, he begs the demon to leave his village alone. He shows respect to the demon. “Calm your furry, oh might lord!” he says, “Whatever you may be, god or demon, please leave us in peace!” This tells us we’re not in a western world, where gods are good and demons are evil. We’re in a polytheistic world where all supernatural beings are to be worshipped and feared.

If Ashitaka’s begging makes us feel like he’s not strong, then very quickly we get to see that we’re wrong. As soon as the demon attacks the girls, Ashitaka fights back without hesitation. And not just that, he kills the demon with just two arrows.

In just 5 minutes, we’ve gotten a very good introduction to the world and the mood of the story, we’ve been introduced to the protagonist and already know how competent and brave he is, and we’ve had our inciting incident, which stops the few wandering thoughts of the outside world in our head, and completely locks our attention in to the world of the story.

This is how a story should begin.