From LISTSERV@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU Sun Jan 1 23:02:13 1995 Return-Path: Received: from mx4.u.washington.edu by redms.cac.washington.edu (5.65+UW94.10/UW-NDC Revision: 2.32 ) id AA04137; Sun, 1 Jan 95 23:02:12 -0800 Received: from mx2.cac.washington.edu by mx4.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW94.10/UW-NDC Revision: 2.31 ) id AA11673; Sun, 1 Jan 95 23:02:12 -0800 Received: from brownvm.brown.edu by mx2.cac.washington.edu (5.65+UW94.10/UW-NDC Revision: 2.31 ) id AA13780; Sun, 1 Jan 95 23:02:05 -0800 Message-Id: <9501020702.AA13780@mx2.cac.washington.edu> Received: from BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU by BROWNVM.brown.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 2766; Mon, 02 Jan 95 02:01:02 EST Received: from BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@BROWNVM) by BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 3113; Mon, 2 Jan 1995 02:00:52 -0500 Date: Mon, 2 Jan 1995 02:00:50 -0500 From: BITNET list server at BROWNVM (1.8a) Subject: File: "PORCO SYNOPSIS" To: "Michael S. Johnson" Status: O PORCO SYNOPSIS Subject: 1.) PORCO ROSSO synopsis by John Ott (THE ROSE, July, 1992) L#00138 2.) PORCO ROSSO synopsis 1.5.1 (David Oakey, August 20, 1992) ======================================================================== Subject: 1.) PORCO ROSSO synopsis by John Ott (THE ROSE, July, 1992) PORCO ROSSO synopsis by John Ott. ORIGINALLY PRINTED in Anime Hasshin's newsletter/fanzine, THE ROSE, Vol. 6, No. 33 (July 1992), pp. 18 & 19. POSTED TO THE HAYAO MIYAZAKI DISCUSSION GROUP by Steven Feldman on September 1, 1992. KURENAI NO BUTA by John Ott KURENAI NO BUTA (The Crimson Pig), reviewed at the U.S. premiere presented by Japan Air Lines, El Camino College, Los Angeles, CA, June 29, 1992. KURENAI NO BUTA a/k/a PORCO ROSSO, is superstar animation director Hayao Miyazaki's return to the kind of action-oriented story that originally made his films and TV shows so popular. PORCO ROSSO's 90 minutes has plenty of flying action, postcard-like scenery, humor, and lots of attention to period detail--but the story's certainly no epic flight of wild imagination like Miyazaki's NAUSICAA, LAPUTA, or even CAGLIOSTRO'S CASTLE. There's no stupendous visual surprises like LAPUTA's flying castle or NAUSICAA's Rotting Ocean. Miyazaki seems quite happy telling tales like KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE and PORCO ROSSO on a more modest scale, with clever characters acting in real-world settings. So who's complaining? It's all virtuoso animation. Modest Miyazaki is still infinitely better than anything else coming out of Japan recently. Throughout the film, Miyazaki's animators depend on detail and special effects to beguile their viewers and draw them into the story. Tiny details--like the sparkle of a shiny object underwater or a reflection in a wineglass--give life to scenes that might otherwise be static and uninvolving. The film's a treat for anybody who loves old airplanes. Most of the aircraft in the film have been copied from real 1920's designs. The storyline closely follows the three-part manga story Miyazaki drew for the March, April, and May, 1990 issues of MODEL GRAFIX magazine: Porco Rosso, the Crimson Pig, is a free-lance aviator living a hermit's life on an idyllic island off the sunny Italian coast. Yes, he IS a pig --although a pretty swashbuckling pig, with an attitude of cool competence. A pig with the Right Stuff. The audience soon realizes that he's the only anthropomorphic animal in the picture. Every other character is perfectly human. The time is the barnstorming 1920's. Mussolini's Fascists have taken over Italy (note the neat *Fascisti* posters on the walls) and air pirates in a variety of ugly flying boats raid passenger ships sailing the Adriatic. But our hero in his bright- red Savoia S-21 seaplane is more than a match for the bad guys. Summoned to the rescue after one such hijacking, he retrieves a noisy bunch of kidnapped kindergarteners from the noisome Manmaiutto gang, shooting off the tail of their Dornier-Wal flying boat in the process. Later, he docks his seaplane at the Hotel Adriano and visits with an old flame, the beautiful but melancholy Gina. Theirs is an old relationship now in trouble over Porco's obsession with flying. Also at the hotel are the air pirates, plotting to get rid of Porco for good, and the American cad Donald Curtis, an aviator who has his eye on Gina. The pirates hire Curtis and his Curtiss RC3-O racing seaplane to challenge Porco to an aerial duel. During the dogfight, the S-21's cranky engine gives out a critical moment and Porco's plane, riddled with machine gun bullets, disappears beneath the clouds. Curtis finds only red-painted chunk of fuselage floating in the sea below and believes his job is done. Porco, hidden by by some trees, waits until Curtis flies away before he hauls the wreckage of his plane off to get repaired. Strapped for cash, Porco chooses to transport his wrecked plane to the small aircraft factory, Piccolo S.P.A., run by a money-hungry little mechanic and his brilliant red-haired daughter, Fio. After learning the extravagant cost of rebuilding and finding out that *Fio* would be in charge of it, Porco nearly walks, but the girl's enthusiasm persuades him to stay. . . . The Piccolos introduce Porco to their workers--every one of them female--who quickly rebuild the S-21 to Fio's specifications. The plane is given a new engine--a modified Rolls-Royce--that blows the roof off the workshop on its first full test. Porco doesn't have much to do except watch, occasionally rock a baby cradle. (The women bring their children with them to work.) While the job goes on, Porco takes in a movie (the audience is treated to a cartoon within a cartoon, showing Porco chuckiing at an old black-and-white cartoon with rubber-limbed Mickey Mouse-like character) and receives an ominous warning from an old friend from the Italian air force--stay out of the air. There's a Fascist government crackdown on free-lance air warriors like Porco. Porco is followed (losing his pursuers by some nifty tricks in a flatbed trailer truck), and as if that's not enough trouble, when his plane is ready Fio reveals that she's built a second cockpit in the seaplane for *herself*. Fio straps on aviator's goggles and informs Porco that since he since he still owes money on the plane, she's going along to make sure nothing happens to it before it's paid off. Porco and Fio escape more gun-toting thugs by taxiing the S-21 down a narrow canal. Then they're away. Porco buzzes the Hotel Adriano, upsetting Curtis's latest moves on Gina. Gina remembers in a flashback the young--very human--pilot who used to woo her and take her flying in a seaplane named the ADRIANO ten years before. Back at Porco's little island, the Manmaiuttos and the other air pirates are waiting for him, ready to chop him and the S-21 to pieces. Fio shouts them down and shames them with the thought that it took an *American* to do what they couldn't do themselves--shoot down Porco Rosso. She appeals to their pride as *Italians* to let the two have it out in the sky one more time, wagering herself--and Porco Rosso's stack of unpaid lOU's--that the Crimson Pig will win. The air pirates are suckered into it. Curtis shows up to accept the new challenge. Late that night, by the lantern-light, as Porco Rosso sorts his ammunition for the upcoming battle by hand, Fio wakes from her bedroll and catches a brief glimpse of the Crimson Pig as he really is--a fully human man. The pig appearance has to do with his own self-image and how the rest of the world sees him. He tells her a story of his experience in the First World War, about being the only survivor of a flight of fighter planes caught in a vicious dogfight with the Germans, of seeing a vision of his dead comrades rising in their shattered aircraft to fly in the heaven for dead aviators, leaving him, shamed and disgraced, behind on earth. The air pirates organize a carnival-like setting for the air contest, complete with hordes of spectators, gamblers, and ice cream vendors. Like a 1920's seaplane race, the contestants are sent off with a wave of a flag to battle it out in the sky. Porco and Curtis fight until their guns are out of ammunition, until they've thrown at each other everything loose they can grab from their cockpits, until they land their planes to duke it out before the spectators in three feet of water. They bash at each other until both are punch-drunk. Gina shows up in her own seaplane to inform the crowd that the Italian air force is on the way to break up the party. . . . Do you really need to be told who wins? And how? Or why? KURENAI NO BUTA is visually rich enough that it will take repeated viewings to catch everything. Needless to say, I'll be waiting in line for the tape when it comes out. This is definitely one to add to the collection. I'd be very happy to hear from anybody who puts together a translation--or a better synopsis. John Ott, 14640 Clymer St., Mission Hills, CA 91345. ======================================================================== Subject: 2.) PORCO ROSSO synopsis 1.5.1 (David Oakey, August 20, 1992) [Re-edited ever-so-slightly by Steven Feldman on August 25, 1992] KURENAI NO BUTA (PORCO ROSSO) Synopsis, Version 1.5.1 (August 20, 1992) Synopsis by David Oakey, incorporating first-hand observations by Fukumoto Atsushi, Larry Greenfield, Jack Palevich, and Robert Woodhead. Thanks to Enrique Conty, Fukumoto Atsushi, Larry Greenfield, and Jack Palevich for their advice, and to Steven Feldman for editorial help. Please keep these headlines intact. KURENAI NO BUTA (PORCO ROSSO) [Major spoiler warning: this synopsis is as thorough as possible at the present time (and long: 8 pages single-spaced / 16 pages double-spaced).] The audience laughed several times during this movie, whereas I-- with only first-year Japanese skills--missed many of the jokes. There was plenty of physical comedy, though, so I laughed along with them some of the time. The movie starts with the setting explained in many languages. This prologue is animated as twelve-or-so rows of little mice traveling in unison left-to-right, accompanied by type-writer sound effects. Each mouse trails text in a different language. There is one mouse 2/3rds of the way down which travels right-to-left. I think it's printing in Arabic. After each line of text is displayed, the mice pause for a short time, then a typewriter-carriage-return sound is heard, and the mice return to the left side and start printing more of the text. And, at the end of the synopsis, there are two or three mice which make an extra pass, because the text description is longer in those languages than in the other languages. The screen fades to a beach lagoon scene. _Open on the Adriatic Sea in the 1920s_ Italian music is playing. The pig's face is covered with an open magazine as he relaxes on a beach by a lagoon. His seaplane, a Savoia S-2, is on the shore, and the small beach area is surrounded on all sides by high cliff walls. It's Porco's cozy hideaway, and he's got an old- fashioned radio playing Italian music. Later, we see some kids on a boat who are big fans of Porco's. The boat signals to Porco with semaphore flags, flashing Morse code lights, and even lines of people on deck forming an arrow. They're telling Porco that air pirates in that direction are kidnapping some kids. Then we switch to a map showing Porco flying one way and some other flyer heading a different way, then a masked figure stealing a bag of money. Porco's plane has a bit of an oil leak as he heads in the direction indicated by all the signals on boat. Porco is popular with the ladies, based on all the waving and such. Then we switch to a scene with the air pirates and their Dabohaze sea plane that's painted with skulls. They are known as the Manma Aiutto gang. The pirates kidnap a dozen or so little girls (Mei's age?) from a cruise ship. While loading the kids onto the pirates' plane, one of the pirates says, "Let's go. We have enough kids." Another pirate replies, "But I want to take them all." After they take off, the girls get into mischief all over the Skull Pirates' plane. Porco flies up and the girls wave to Porco. The Skull Pirates try to fire at Porco, but the girls bump the gunners to make them miss. Porco signals to the Skull Pirates, but they keep firing at him, so he shoots them down. But still they won't surrender, even when landed on the water, and the pirate chief-- known simply as "Boss" Manma Aiutto (who looks like Bluto from Popeye)-- tears one of the sea plane's guns from its turret and aims it at Porco. So Porco swoops in for a final strafing run. As he nears, "Boss's" big 37 millimeter gun doesn't work, so his comrades wave the white flag at the last moment and Porco refrains from shooting. The skull ships' tail--with its skull painting--breaks clean off. Then Porco rescues the girls, who virtually commandeer his plane. They even use it as a tugboat for their swimming float, and stretch a clothes line between the two. Later, we see a newspaper headline which says, in Italian, something like "The Pig enjoys Motherhood." The scene shifts to a fancy nightclub. The pirate gang is there. They all have scars, and one even has an eye patch. They all are swooning over the lovely singer, Madame Gina. Gina is singing in French, and the whole nightclub loves her song. A Kurotowa look-alike is there, in a blue Lone Ranger outfit and a letter "C" on his belt buckle. His name is Donald Curtis, an American. He likes Gina, too. Porco arrives at the Hotel Adriano and enters the nightclub while Gina is still singing. Two reporters come over to Porco and photograph him (flash bulbs flashing) and try to interview him on the spot, but their loud questions earn them the ire of Mr Curtis, who physically removes the reporters so he can concentrate on Gina without noise. Gina's music is able to soothe even the savage hearts of the pirates. Meanwhile, Mr. Curtis and Porco talk. Porco goes off to eat alone, but shortly Gina sits and talks to him. There's a photo of several pilots on the wall, dated 1912. One pilot's face has been scribbled out. (It's Porco's face as he appeared before he became pig headed.) Mr. Curtis takes off in his plane (marked with a big "C" on the tail) that night. The next day, Porco makes a trip to the bank. He sees a military parade (the Fascists are taking over Italy). He goes to a gunsmith and gets a new machine gun. Elsewhere, we see "Boss" and the pirates in a repaired seaplane (with a different plane's tail on, instead of the skull-painted one) flying with a lot of other colorfully/whimsically-painted planes. "Boss" shouts, "Urusai!" (shut up!) so often that it's his trademark phrase. The colorful planes fly over a passenger ship that suddenly brings out planes with folded-up wings on its deck. They are the cruiser's guards. Their wings unfold and they fly to meet the colorful planes. Mr. Curtis (who was hired to help the air-pirates union) is in this air battle. Cut to Porco, relaxing on the beach of his lagoon. He is listening to his radio when his music is interrupted by a news report including a challenge from the air pirates, who have bags and bags of money. Porco gets in his sea plane and takes off through a natural archway in the cliff wall surrounding his private lagoon. He says something about going on vacation in order to overhaul his engine and himself in Milan . . . whilst seeing lots of pretty girls. Porco's plane rises through beautifully animated fog effects. As he rises above the clouds, he is met by Mr Curtis's plane. We see subtle propeller effects in a close up of Mr. Curtis's face, the subtlest of which will probably not be visible on the small screen. There's a cool dogfight, which Porco loses when his engine fails and his plane falls down through the clouds. Mr Curtis descends and searches from the air for Porco's wreckage amongst the tiny wooded islands that dot the area, but sees nothing. He lands his seaplane and finds a small chunk of Porco's wooden plane floating in the water. (Porco is hiding his ruined plane under the branches of some trees on one of the isles.) We switch scenes again. Gina's aboard a ship that's leaving the dock near the Hotel Adriano when a porter runs on the dock and shouts that's there's a phone call for her. She jumps from the deck to the dock (not a moment too soon) and takes the call. It's Porco! It's been two days since the dog fight. Apparently, it took Porco that long to get back to civilization. When she realizes that he could have been killed, she shouts that he could have ended up as roast pork (and on his end of the line, the phone's earpiece forms lips that shout at Porco ^_^). Next, we see Porco on the flatcar of a train with his wrecked plane under a tarp. Elsewhere, we see a 17 year old Nausicaa look-alike named Fio at the Piccolo S.P.A. warehouse. (S.P.A. is Italian for "Inc." or "Co." or "Ltd.") Porco arrives and talks to a whiskered man whom Fio calls "Gramps" (is his real name Pergo?). When Fio is out of earshot, Porco asks Mr. Whiskers if he really IS Fio's grandfather, to which "Gramps" responds in a secretive manner, "Te dasuna yo!" ("Don't lay your hands on her!") Anyhow, "Gramps" takes Porco to the machine shop in the warehouse, where we see a shiny new engine with "Ghibli" embossed on it in big letters. Porco bargains with "Gramps" over the cost of the new plane, and he has to pay extra for living in the warehouse during the construction--especially since he eats so much. He is told that Fio is going to design his plane. He thinks that's an awful idea. Later, in the warehouse, "Gramps" is counting money. Fio comes in. She's quite talkative. Porco takes the money and Fio says, "Wait!" She then says something like, "What's the first prerequisite as a pilot? Experience?" Porco answers, "No, inspiration." "Fine. I heard you were quite young when you flew for the first time. Right?" she demands. "1910. I was seventeen." "Oh! the same age I am now," replies Fio. She gives Porco a blanket, and seems happy despite Porco's efforts to give her the brush-off. Next morning, in the Piccolo S.P.A. warehouse, we find Fio is designing a plane. She's quite good at it . . . and she was up all night working on it. She's wearing earrings like Nausicaa's and has on a white shirt with blue plaid. Porco likes her design but he angrily says, "Only one person?" He's worried that she's going to make the plane all by herself. But Fio is happy anyway. A little later, school girls and ladies (who all furtively like Porco) walk into the warehouse, ^DO passing Porco. They are all from Piccolo families. (The men-folk had gone away to find jobs due to the worldwide financial depression of the 1920's, so only women were available to help.) Then, old ladies walk by, and they openly show their affection for Porco. He maintains suave grace through it all. The women-folk set up tables, make spaghetti and prepare brunch. Then, except for Porco, they all pray. Fio notices this and winks at him. In a shed next to the warehouse, "Gramps" and Porco test the new engine. With the pistons firing and the attention to detail on the engine, one is impressed by the animation. Porco, on the other hand, is impressed at the blast of wind caused by the propeller. The shed shakes from the force of air. Meanwhile--to the sound of jolly music--the ladies help build a new plane for Porco all that day. That night, we see Fio at the drafting board, designing late into the evening. The next day, the wooden plane gets painted Italian Red. Porco, true gentleman that he is, kicks back and rocks a cradle while the ladies work hard on his plane. Again, Fio is up late designing. Elsewhere, we see Porco in a black and white movie theatre watching a cartoon of an aerial dogfight. The old filmstock is scratched. The cartoon looks like a tribute to old Max Fleischer cartoons, with a four- armed bug version of Betty Boop and a Gertie the Dinosaur look-alike. A heavily-decorated Italian officer sits next to Porco in the theatre and they talk. He's an old friend of Porco's named Ferrarin. Porco leaves the theatre, and walks along the city street until Fio pulls up driving a big flatbed truck. Porco takes over the driving. Fio notices that they are being followed by another car. "Are you really a spy?" asks Fio. "Me?! A spy?!" he asks in return. Porco thinks that's hilarious. Realizing they are being followed, Porco makes an evasive turnaround in the street to escape the following car. It works, too. Heh. Porco's new plane is finished. Fio says she's going too, having designed and built a co-pilot seat. "You've gotta be kidding!" roars Porco, but Fio just tells him to shush. She says she has some request ("onegai shimasu") and Porco is mad, but Fio becomes happy. Apparently, Porco owes extra money for the plane, and Fio is going to be his partner until he earns enough bounty hunting to pay the debts. The plane has a crank to start it, like on old cars. The ladies open the warehouse doors and out fly Fio and Porco. There's a canal or river running next to the Piccolo S.P.A. warehouse, and across the river spies with guns open fire on Porco's new plane. He returns fire and ends up on the canal where he skims along the water rather than taking off. The ladies wave him off. He steers his seaplane like a speedboat down the canal, under bridges, and even has to rise onto one pontoon to avoid collision with an oncoming riverboat. Finally, the plane takes off. We see a pretty sunrise. Another plane flies up to them. It's Ferrarin. Upon seeing Fio with Porco, Ferrarin signals "Buta ni shinju," by sign language ("Pearls before swine," or "What a waste"). Porco and Fio say thanks but when he's gone, Porco grumbles about him. They fly low over the countryside landscape and then over the sea. Elsewhere, Mr. Curtis is at an island villa. Gina is sitting alone in an island gazebo and Mr. Curtis comes up and flirts with her. He tells her that he can make her a big movie star if she'll come back with him to Hollywood. This smoothie even hands her a letter of some sort. She's cold to him and laughs at his offer. Then Porco flies overhead, doing aerial acrobatics, which causes Gina to recall a time from her youth--riding in a plane with a much younger Porco who then had a human face; she's riding an even older fashion plane with Marco Pagott (Porco's real name) as the pilot. In her memory, she asked Marco something as he was steering. As he looked over his shoulder to answer, a gust of wind raised her dress and he saw her petticoats blown around and he turned away, blushing. The flashback ends, and it's clear that Gina remembers the time fondly. Up on the plane, Porco asks Fio something, and as she turns to answer, we can see both her face as Porco sees it, and a tiny version of it that Porco would see if he looked through the spyglass mounted on the front of the pilot's windshield. Good attention to detail like that in the animation made it a delight. Later, they land in the water for a gas fill-up. Porco goes ashore to a bar while a boy with cans of gas rows out to the plane and hand pumps the gas into Porco's plane. The boy seems impressed at Fio's looks or surprised that a gal dares to fly with Porco. Shortly thereafter, they take off and land at an islet, and go into a sea cave with the plane, which opens onto Porco's secret lagoon where he goes to relax. "Beautiful!" exclaims Fio. Porco has a tent pitched on the shore, but it appears to be inhabited . . . by the Skull Gang air pirates. The air pirates leap out of the tent and comically run down their leaders in their effort to surround Porco with dozens of guns. They spot Fio and they like her. "Boss" says "temee" (which is a brutish way of saying "YOU!") a lot in this scene. The air pirates threaten Porco's plane. Fio talks her way over to "Boss" because she could not tolerate the plane which she designed getting broken. She talks proudly to "Boss", and the pirates like it . . . all except for "Boss." The pirates then threaten Porco, saying, "Mince the pig instead," and Fio shames them all with words of her own. "It's a shame that you Adriatic men needed help from an American. Porco returned to duel with Mr. Curtis," she says. Then, suddenly, someone laughs from high on the cliff wall. It's Mr. Curtis, who leaps from the wall and lands on his feet. Mr. Curtis walks over and flirts with Fio, actually going as far as asking her to marry him! She and Mr. Curtis talk, and he flips through a notebook listing Porco's unpaid bills. Essentially, Fio is claiming that the pirates can't kill Porco until his bills are paid. A deal is struck. There will be a fight the next day between Curtis and Porco. If Curtis wins, he can marry Fio. If Porco wins, Curtis will pay his debts. "Boss" announces, "The air-pirate union will manage this duel!" to the Skull Gang, which leaves with Curtis. This leaves Porco and Fio alone by the lagoon again. Fio is sad for some reason, but her naturally-buoyant nature comes back. She disrobes (partly) and swims. Porco laughs. That evening, when Fio is in a sleeping bag, Porco inspects his bullets. While Fio is half asleep, his face looks human to her. And handsome. But only for a moment. "Why are you a pig?" she asks. "Dunno," he answers. "So, may I kiss you?" "Huh?" "You know, in the fairy tale, the spell on a frog was broken by a kiss from a princess." "Don't be silly. Save it for a more important moment." "Then, tell me a story." Porco tells Fio a story of when he was a younger pilot in the Italian army (the planes had red, white and green bullseye insignias). His army fliers had a mass dogfight with the army planes with German black cross insignias. He got hurt and awoke in his cockpit rising in a sea of milky clouds. It was so peaceful, so high. Other fliers rose from the sea of clouds and ascended to a stream of thousands of other planes. They were Porco's dead comrades. They didn't hear him as they joined the stream of "downed" planes. His cries were in vain. "...God?" asks Fio. Porco brushes off the possibility. Fio says something to the effect that she likes him despite his gruff manner. She hops out of her sleeping bag and gives him a quick kiss on the cheek. The next day, we see a festive crowd on an islet. Many people have come by sailboat to see the duel, and Porco and Fio are there. "Boss" makes an announcement to the crowd and emphasizes his point by firing machine-guns over the heads of the astonished crowd. "Boss" pulls out a sack of money and offers Fio a chair. Apparently, there's going to be an aerial duel between Porco and Mr. Curtis, and the winner gets the sack of money. A photographer is going to take a picture of the Skull Gang air pirates, but "Boss" elbows the others out of the picture. Many onlookers place bets on Porco and Mr. Curtis. Fio and "Boss" watch the fight via binoculars and telescope. "Boss" reveals some information to Fio, which distresses her. "That pig won't shoot," he says. "Why?" asks Fio. "You see, Curtis is still moving actively, so, if the pig shoots now, he might shoot the pilot, too. He'll shoot the engine when Curtis becomes tired. What a disgusting pig." The dogfight pauses for a moment as the pilots fly side by side and exchange words instead of bullets. Curtis shouts, "Why don't you shoot? Are you making a fool of me? . . . Ha! I see! Your gun was broken!" but then Porco fires a short burst to show that his gun is in fact working. They fly low over the flotilla of spectators' boats, and their stray bullets frighten the crowd and knock down the watch tower. Elsewhere, Gina hears something in Morse code on a secret telegraph that she keeps hidden in a bookcase. . . . Gina is the spy! Meanwhile, the crowd is watching the ongoing dogfight. High accelerations cause the pilots' faces to ripple. Then, suddenly, Porco finds that pressing the trigger on his machine gun doesn't result in firing anymore! His gun has jammed. Then, the same thing happens to Mr. Curtis' guns, but in his case it's because he's out of bullets. They fly alongside each other and Mr. Curtis pulls a pistol and fires at Porco by hand, but misses him. Porco throws the plane's handcrank at Mr. Curtis and hits him in the face. They land in the water next to the islet where the crowd is gathered. The crowd surges toward the shore. Porco and Curtis have exited their planes and their confrontation has turned into a fistfight in knee- deep shore water. Gina gets in her plane (marked with a "G" on the tail) and takes off. Back at the fistfight, the two pilots look pretty awful, with faces that are beaten to a pulp. It's a boxing match for endurance now, with a clang on a frying pan to mark the end of rounds. As the combatants tire, it becomes a fight in slow motion. Porco loses a round. Gina comes in for a landing at the islet where they are. The fighters are so tired now, with eyes almost swollen shut, that their punches miss entirely. But as Gina's plane pulls up, they simultaneously knock each other out and both sink into the water. The referee starts to count. Gina calls to Porco who arises from the waves on the count of ten. He won! Gina says to the crowd, "The festival is over now. Italian forces are coming to arrest you all," and everyone disperses. "Boss" gives Fio the prize money. Porco throws Fio on Gina's plane despite her protests. Fio kisses Porco, who gets knocked in the head by the plane's wing. (Notice that after the scene where Fio kisses Porco, his face is never shown on screen again.) Then, Mr. Curtis and Porco remember that the Italian Air Force is coming to arrest them and so they, too, head for their planes. Fio thinks about something while flying aboard Gina's plane. Cut to a more recent era. The pirate gang characters are older. They have retired on their gambling winnings and lounge around the Hotel Adriano. Donald Curtis is a movie star and director in Hollywood. In voice-over, Fio explains that Gina sold the island hotel to her. Gina went with Curtis to Hollywood, and her face is on a movie poster with Curtis. Curtis is wearing a cowboy hat and there is a dinosaur in the background. Fio keeps building planes, and every year, spends the summer at the hotel with Gina, waiting for Porco. . . . During the credits, there are sketches, and then--as in KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE--one final animated scene . . . of a plane flying off into the clouds. Fio says, "And after the fight, I never saw him again."