MANILA, Philippines — Studio Ghibli has released the English-language trailer for legendary filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki's first feature film in a decade, "The Boy and the Heron."
The original cast of the animated film was led by Soma Santoki as Mahito Maki and actor-singer Masaki Suda as the Grey Heron.
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The English dub features young actor Luca Padovan voicing Maki, while British actor Robert Pattinson voices the titular heron.
Rounding up the English cast are Karen Fukuhara, Gemma Chan, Christian Bale, Mark Hamill, Florence Pugh, Willem Dafoe, Filipino-American wrestler-turned-actor Dave Bautista, and the trio of Mamoudou Athie, Tony Revolori and Dan Stevens as the Parakeets.
All the actors did their dubbing in compliance with Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) under the guild's Foreign Dubbing Agreement.
WATCH: Hollywood A-list cast dubs Hayao Miyazaki's 'The Boy and the Heron'
It is interesting to note that Pattinson and Bale have both played different versions of Batman, Hamill has popularly voiced Batman villain the Joker in several media, and Dafoe has been pegged by fans to portray the Joker despite global recognition as Spider-Man the Green Goblin.
Bale previously did the English dub for the titular character of Miyazaki's 2004 film "Howl's Moving Castle." Hamill was in the English-language cast of Studio Ghibli's first feature film "Castle in the Sky" by Miyazaki in 1986, while Dafoe was in the English-language cast of another Studio Ghibli film, "Tales from Earthsea," directed by Miyazaki's son Goro.
"The Boy and the Heron" follows young Maki in the middle of World War II who discovers an abandoned tower in his new town after the death of his mother and enters a fantastical world with a talking grey heron.
The film is somewhat based on the 1937 Genzaburo Yoshino "How Do You Live," the movie's original title in Japan, and inspired by Miyazaki's experiences after the war and losing his own mother.
"The Boy and the Heron" is currently set for a November 29 release in the Philippines. — Video from GKIDS' YouTube channel
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