Here is an essay about Milo and Otis I found online:
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I've been interested in rumors about "The Adventures of Milo and Otis" for some time, but I've never been able to resolve this to my satisfaction, but pardon me while I ramble on. (In the end, I think we need to enlist the help of someone who's familiar with Japanese and has access to Japanese press clippings.)
In any event, if it were up to me, I'd have to give this an "undetermined" status.
In a nutshell, it seems to come down to the issue of why Masanori Hata had to use so many "Milos" or "Otises" in the making of his film. Were thirty "Milos" needed because so many kittens were killed during the filming of dangerous stunts? Or did the filmmaker need multiple kittens because each cat aged over the four years it took to complete filming? Or, were some kittens better at performing certain tasks (like scampering) while others were needed for other acts (like looking adorably into the camera or playing with puppies)?
Perhaps the answer lies in a melding of all three.
In August, 1989, Columbia Pictures released "The Adventures of Milo and Otis," a revamped version of the enormously popular Japanese film "Koneko Monogatari: The Adventures of Chatran," which had debuted in Japan three years earlier. As I understand it, "Koneko Monogatari" ("A Kitten's Story") was somewhat less about plot than it was about visual aesthetics; in essence, this was an arty film and not a children's film.
As early as October, 1986, a few months after "Koneko Monogatari" debuted in Japan, rumors about animal cruelty began popping up in Japan and elsewhere. The Economist [1] noted that,
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Chatran's life is full of trials and tribulations, many of them to do with being soaked to the skin, like falling over a waterfall in a wooden box or plummeting from a cliff into the sea. It is hard to see how he survived. Indeed, according to Japan's biggest animal-rights group, he did not. Or, to be accurate, a third of the 30 Chatrans used did not.
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Such allegations notwithstanding, a few US studios looked at the amazingly successful movie with a view toward releasing it in the States as a children's film. Executives at Columbia picked it up, working on it in their spare time with a limited budget.
In September, 1989, a month after "The Adventures of Milo and Otis" debuted here, The Wall Street Journal ran a lengthy piece [2] on Columbia's handling of the film:
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The movie germinated when well-known Japanese author Masanori Hata, who owns a huge ranch abounding with animals, made a series of nature films with Japan's biggest commercial TV network, Fujisankei's Fuji TV unit. The films were so successful that Fuji made "The Adventures of Chatran," a movie about a young cat who finds himself floating down a river in a box and spends nearly a year away from home, all the while pursued protectively by a pug dog.
[...]
Executives on both sides of the Pacific agreed the film needed to be overhauled, Americanized. "It needed to be tailored to American kids who watch 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,' " says Brandt Reiter, an account executive at Fujisankei.
And there began the real adventures of Milo and Otis.
Jim Clark, the Oscar-winning editor of "The Killing Fields," was assigned to re-edit. Fuji supplied him with almost 70 hours of extra footage. "Some might say we vulgarized it," says Mr. Clark, "but we felt it was on the arty side." The recipe? Lose the poetry. Quicken the pace. Add a long, zany sequence wherein the dog and cat adopt a newborn chick. Add a sea turtle. Bring in a star, Dudley Moore, to narrate the film and do animal voices.
[...]
With [children under 10] in mind, Columbia's editors removed graphic scenes of animals fighting and toned down other scary parts. The cat, renamed Milo, still takes a long plunge off a cliff into the ocean, but scenes of him trying in vain to climb back up were cut. (Taming such scenes was also done with animal-rights activists in mind. Studio executives "were terrified of the animal-cruelty people," says Mr. Clark, hastening to add that Columbia hasn't any reason to believe there was any mistreatment involved.)
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Despite Columbia's position that there was no basis to the allegations of abuse during the filming of "Koneko Monogatari," however, rumors about animal cruelty -- particularly with reference to the number of animals used -- were at least acknowledged immediately after the debut of "The Adventures of Milo and Otis" here. A review in a New Jersey newspaper [3] noted that:
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All [the scenes in which Milo and Otis appear to be in danger] may be momentarily unsettling for young viewers, but, as one might expect, a happy ending is forthcoming. (The entire film runs 76 minutes). Then, too, it's comforting to see in the closing credits that "the animals used were filmed under strict supervision with the utmost care for their safety and well-being."
Director Masanori Hata, a trained zoologist and author who writes under the pen name Mutsugoro, cast the movie from a private menagerie of almost 300 animals that he keeps on Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island. It took Hata, who wrote the story on which the screenplay is based, four years, more than 400,000 feet of film, and dozens of animals (30 different cats played Milo, for example), to complete "The Adventures of Milo and Otis."
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I'm unsure where the film reviewer for The Toronto Star [4] got the following bit of information (but it's a claim repeated by a reviewer for The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette a year later), but here's a possible explanation for why Hata may have used so many cats:
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The secret is that Hata is not just a director, but a trained zoologist with a private farm of hundreds of animals. Even so, getting the right shots and movements from his menagerie was a painstaking process that turned "Milo And Otis" into a four-year endeavor.
And because the movie revolved around a kitten and puppy, Hata had to keep replacing the aging animals with younger ones as the project stretched on. In the end, dozens of Milos and Otises played the two parts.
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In the summer of 1990, The Washington Times [5] looked at the rumors:
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["The Adventures of Milo and Otis"] was released in New York and Los Angeles last year, and ought to have made it down to us by the end of that summer. It waited a while, however, and for unclear reasons. Perhaps not coincidentally, it was around this time that animal-protection groups heard about an article in a Japanese newspaper reporting rumors that animal being used had somehow died during filming. And indeed, a look at the movie's script revealed scenes in which Milo, the cat, falls from a high sea cliff, while Otis, the dog, is seen trudging, naked-pawed, through drifts of real snow.
Had the filmmakers committed acts of lethal cruelty? Along with groups in Europe, the Hollywood branch of the American Humane Society investigated -- but found nothing suspicious.
The Humane Society continues to harbor doubts about the whole idea of showing domestic pets at large in the wilderness. Humans may get the impression that dogs and cats can survive under harsh outdoor conditions, and unintentionally endanger their own pets. A casual aside in press materials noting that the filmmakers had "bred" cats to serve as additional, backup Milos might also prompt concern.
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(The Humane Society doesn't seem to have section on use of animals in films, and for some reason "The Adventures of Milo and Otis" isn't included in The American Humane Association's current index of film ratings index, though this may have been the AHA's position when the film debuted in the States.)
-- Bonnie
[1] From "Japanese moviegoers' love affair with a real cute cat," The Star-Tribune (Minneapolis-St. Paul); originally printed in The Economist (London); Metro, Pg. 29A; 26 October 1986.
[2] From Richard Turner's "Japanese film sells in U.S., but as a different animal," The Wall Street Journal; 5 September 1989.
[3] From "A fairy tale of wags and whiskers," The Bergen County [New Jersey] Record; Lifestyle/Previews, Pg. 6; 25 August 1989.
[4] From Henry Mietkiewicz's "There are no fleas on Milo and Otis," The Toronto Star; Entertainment, Pg. D8; 27 August 1989.
[5] From David Klinghoffer's "That 'Milo and Otis': A pair of likable wags," The Washington Times; Arts & Entertainment, Pg. E3; 18 June 1990.]
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