Customer Reviews

Mysterious Cities of Gold

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This 1980's series, loosely based on Scott O'Dell's novel "The King's Fifth" is a superb blend of Japanese animation, French writing, and some of the best music ever.

The series which is one big story arc follows a group of Spaniards in the 16th century who go looking for a city of gold that is hidden somewhere in Central or South America, they are accompanied by an Inca girl who can decipher clues to its location and later meet other people along the way.

The storyline includes mythology of lost continents of Atlantis and Mu (Hiva in this story), and of their supposed highly advanced technology that rivals today's.

This series was the jewel of Nickelodeon's television programming in the 1980's and became a cult classic. It was previously released on DVD in Quebec and France in the early 2000's and Japan a few years later. It is now set for a long overdue US release with excellent special features.

I speculate that the success of bootleg copies of the series may have contributed to it finally being released on DVD in English speaking countries just like what happened with the series Sea Quest DSV.

The series also includes a music soundtrack by Haim Saban and Shuki Levy recorded with synthesizers which is worthy of a Grammy and an Emmy. This soundtrack is better than most movie soundtracks and has been released on LP and CD over the decades.

I am ecstatic about this release and will be buying both editions. It is a show that people who watched it growing up will want their kids to see. I watched this all the time when it was on Nickelodeon in the 80's and am glad it is getting the release it deserves.

After 20 years of waiting, its finally here.

The Mysterious Cities of Gold is a show most of children would have seen on Nickelodeon in the mid-80's. A rare collaboration between French writers and Japanese animators (overseen by none other than Hayao Miyazaki himself), it combined strong characters with rich artwork, and set it all in a more or less historically accurate 15th century Meso-America. 39 episodes in length, this series tells one continuous story, told primarily from the viewpoint of the show's three main child characters.

Along their journey, these children demonstrate the virtues of love, friendship, kindness, and self-sacrifice, without any of the artificial constructs normally placed into such stories. They learn and grow, becoming deeper, more mature people as they explore and come in contact with real South American cultures, which are painted in a positive light. The primary antagonists are the invading Spaniards, seeking to look the new world's gold for their own profit.

From a decade where everything was a glorified half-hour toy commercial, the Mysterious Cities of Gold stood out due to it's emphasis on story telling and character development. And, unlike other series of it's time, when the story ends, so does the series. No attempt was made to milk this show for every last penny, it has a definite start, middle, and end, so there is a tangible sense of completion and satisfaction upon completing your viewing.

In addition, each episode contained, at the end, a brief history lesson about the real world versions of items and places visited by the characters in that episode. These were cut from various non-English versions of the series, but are here in full educational glory.

Never before released on video (either VHS or DVD) in America before now, and filled with great extras, this is something that should not be missed. For those of us that grew up watching the adventures of Esteban, to a whole new generation of children that have never experienced a cartoon of this caliber, you simply cannot go wrong here.

Children of the Sun, after 20 long years, our time has finally begun!

To be certain, this show is terrific! The glowing reviews for the Mysterious Cities of Gold, both on this site and throughout the web, are well-deserved. With that said, I'm more interested in discussing the particulars of this DVD, to help you make an educated purchase.

This release spreads 39 episodes out between 6 discs. Each episode is presented along with its original, corresponding documentary. Additionally, there are DVD exclusives on each disc. The features are engaging, although it would've been nice to segregate the extras to disc 6, making it easier to find them!

Also, it is true that there are no other language options or subtitles on this disc. This is a little disappointing, as the documentary on the voice-over acting discusses the differences between the french and english translations frequently, making me wish I could hear some of the original french!

Yet, despite my criticisms, this box truly is very very good. An alternate Region 1 release of this series is a French Canadian box set by CMR Home Video, Les Mysterieuses Cites D'Or - Complete Collection Boxset (Original French ONLY Version - No English Options). CMR's release is inferior, as it has no liner notes and no extra features. Nor does it have subtitles or other language features.

So, while I have rated the MCoG Deluxe Edition as 4/5 stars, a more precise rating is 9/10. The one point reduction is due solely to the lack of language and subtitle options. Otherwise, this set is an excellent purchase. It is well worth the price, and fans of the show will love it!

This series has a great story. The authors did a marvelous job creating a work of historical fiction based on various South and Central American legends. They have done their homework, and the result is a memorable story, intelligent, clean and without gratuitous violence. Don't expect historical accuracy. Do expect to be entertained. This show is a "page turner," if you will, and you'll find yourself watching show after show, disk after disk before you even know it.

MCoG was produced by the French, but if I remember correctly, the animation was farmed out to a company in Japan. It was so popular that it got translated into quite a few different languages. I'm not much of a fan of French TV, but I take my hat off to them for this series.

I am so happy that this series is getting a proper release in North America. Until now our only options were to buy a french language import or acquire poor quality fan copies.

By today's standards this show is a little slow and the animation quality isn't the best, but it is a generally high quality story which mixes history and fantasy in a rather interesting way. Highly recommended for nostalgia freaks and or parents seeking shows which will positively influence a child's mind while entertaining them.

Finally, those who were captivated by this story when it first aired can see it in its entirety! I've been running internet searches on this show for years, hoping it would be released on VHS or DVD, and finally it's here! While the animation quality is definitely vintage, this story is one of few that I've never outgrown or been able to forget. I look forward to letting my children enjoy it just as much as I did then.

Frankly, I'd argue that this is one of the best adventure serials ever made, period, but at the very least it is unquestionably the best paced. I love adventure serials, but one of my pet peeves with the format is the all too common poor pacing, especially in quest serials. What I mean by that is that you only need to watch the first episode or two, the last episode or two, and occasionally one or two critical episodes in between in order to know the whole story, to see all the mysteries resolved. Most of the episodes, however well written, are filler or red herrings that are not important to the telling of the main story.

In contrast not a single episode in this serial is wasted. Every episode sees an important clue discovered or deciphered, an important lock unlocked, an important tool acquired or learned more about, an important piece of knowledge obtained, an important ally won or a dangerous enemy thwarted, a significant character development or team building exercise, or at the very least, significant physical progress being made on a journey stretching from Barcelona to the land of the Incas to the Amazon jungle to the land of the Mayas. Even the interlude among the Amazons, arguably the least important to advancing the main storyline, results in them figuring out how to power up a vital tool when it gets shielded from the Sun by the jungle canopy and discovering and deciphering the purpose of another example of advanced Hivan technology.

It is the 16th Century, and everyone it seems is looking for the mysterious cities of gold. Unsatisfied with the wealth he has stolen from the Incas, Francisco Pizarro is seeking them, and he even has an important clue, the Golden Quipu, which supposedly reveals their location. Unfortunately he hasn't yet been able to, uh, "persuade" any Incas to decipher it for him. However, for some reason (perhaps because he finally realized who her father was) he now believes that the Inca girl he once gave as a "pet savage" to the Spanish royal family can read it and can be more easily "persuaded" to read it than an adult. So he has secretly sent Senior Gomez and Captain Perez of the Esperanza back to Barcelona to retrieve the now 11-year-old Zia. Explanations would take time and might not be persuasive so they have decided just to kidnap her. However, sneaking into the royal palace is not something a prudent man does when he can hire a reckless man to do it for him, and as everyone knows, Mendoza, the navigator, "will do anything for gold." No need to tell him the real reason, though.

But Mendoza already knows. If he didn't know before, he knew as soon as he saw the medallion of the Sun Zia wears. He found an identical medallion around the neck of the baby boy he saved by insanely swimming to the rescue from Magellan's round-the-world expedition at the height of a Pacific storm over a decade earlier. He stole the Sun part of that medallion at the time and has since come to believe it is connected with the cities of gold. In Barcelona Mendoza runs into that boy now 12 who hears the same story from his foster father on his deathbed, and Mendoza after producing the stolen medallion in order to establish his bona fides, offers to sneak the boy onboard the Esperanza and take him to the New World in search of adventure, his possibly still living father, and perhaps even the cities of gold. With no remaining ties to Spain, Esteban agrees, hoping to find his father or at least learn who and what he is. In the hold of the Esperanza the two children discover each other, become fast friends, and realize that their identical medallions arguably somehow link their origins and probably link their fates.

That's just the first episode. After this things start to get complicated.

One of the best parts about this serial is the intricate character interactions. True, everybody is searching for the same cities of gold but for widely differing stated reasons with widely differing true motives and with widely differing extremes they are willing to go to in order to get what they want. Amongst an army (or several) of brutal treasure hunters, Mendoza stands out for his refusal to harm the children in the apparent belief that if he follows them around long enough and helps them out long enough, eventually they will come to trust him...

or at least let something important slip. Esteban, who grew up Spanish and owes both his life and the opportunity to tag along to him, tolerates Mendoza more than Zia, who'd gladly never see another Spaniard for the rest of her life, but even she gradually realizes that there is merit in a person who insists on keeping you alive and unharmed even if it is for all the wrong reasons, in hopes that you will eventually become useful to him. It is all fine and dandy to dismiss Mendoza's help amongst Incans who treat you like a national hero, but amongst other "peoples" who would sacrifice you to their gods or dismember you in order to harvest your young and healthy cells, a competently treacherous Spaniard and his two loyal imbeciles (loyal precisely because they realize they ARE imbeciles who'd stand no chance on their own) make a nice ace in the hole. (Mendoza's treachery tour de force, which involves switching sides twice in a single episode, has to be seen to be believed, including the climax when Esteban schools the teacher.) A lot of fun is also had with the differing approaches to problem solving between Tao, a 13-year-old Hivan boy who joins up later and Esteban. A scholar and an inventor, Tao prefers to carefully plan his moves when lives are on the line while Esteban is inclined to trust to luck and just wing it. This leads to a great deal of trouble between the two, especially when Esteban's recklessness succeeds beyond all reason!

Only VERY loosely based upon Scott O'Dell's second novel The King's Fifth, this serial significantly alters that novel's premise by tossing into the mix all of the wildest and most radical theories regarding the mysteries of pre-Columbian South and Central America, including lost civilizations, highly advanced technology, and the lost continent of Mu (Hiva). Watching this series when it was first shown on Nickelodeon even lead me to purchase and read the then new Lost Cities and Ancient Mysteries of South America (Lost Cities Series), and I was astonished to learn how much of this serial was based upon existing theories. I contacted the Illinois-based author, one thing lead to another, and we ended up meeting and exchanging copies of videotapes, for my part receiving my first look at the somewhat overwrought but nevertheless amazing movie MacKenna's Gold, based upon the famous Lost Dutchman Mine.

Defects? Only the occasional nitpick. English subtitles would have been nice as would the French and Japanese soundtracks with their own English subtitles for comparison. (I'm curious to know what changes were made now that I know some changes WERE made.) A musical soundtrack CD would have been another nice to have since the original soundtrack album is long gone and out of print.

One of the nice things about these DVD's for fans who only watched the show on Nickelodeon is that the missing live action documentary segments have been restored. These short educational features, included because the series was targetted at public education TV channels, often explained the facts or in some cases the theories behind the plot devices used in that episode: the Nazca lines, the lost continent of Mu (Hiva in this show), the Amazons, etc. Fittingly, the documentary segment on the last episode ends with the mysterious disappearance in 1925 of renowned British explorer Col. Percy Harrison Fawcett who vanished while seeking to find The Lost City of Z.

Note: Be sure and unfold and check out the poster that comes with the (DELUXE EDITION) but not until after you've watched the serial at least once. Why? Because on the back of the poster is a map of the whole expedition, including the named locations of all the important places. It should clear up some mysteries, like the true location of Pizarro's Fort.

Among the extras included on the DVD's, the most interesting to me was the interview with co-creator Jean Chalopin, which revealed among other things that these 39 episodes were originally intended to be the first season of a seven year long serial that would have had the heroes seeking out each of the seven lost cities of gold all around the world. The second year was to be set in Japan, the third in Indonesia, then on to Africa and mainland Asia, but the first series wasn't financially successful enough to attract enough funding. Currently Mr. Chalopin is trying to get Hollywood interested in a movie version and use its (hoped for) success to get the remaining years of the series produced.

Now THAT is something I would LOVE to see!

Esteban, Zia, and Tao: three children who set sail for the New World to find the fabled Cities of Gold. Unlike their Spanish counterparts, which include their de facto quardians Mendosa, Sancho, & Pedro, neither of them are interested in gold and conquest. Esteban and Zia want to find their long lost fathers, and Tao wants to learn more about the lost civilization of Hiva from which he is descended from. Along the way, they encounter friendly and not so friendly natives, technological wanders from a land long lost, and of course greedy, bloodthirsty Spaniards who stop at nothing to reach the Cities of Gold and plunder them of their wealth.

The Mysterious Cities of Gold has long been one of the deepest treasures of my childhood. Everything from the characters, the storytelling, and the themes envolved come together to form in my opinion one of the last great masterpieces of the 20th Century. To see it get the home video release it so rightfully deserves brings tears to my eyes. This is one DVD set that is worth its weight in GOLD. You would be a fool not to pick this up.

The Mysterious Cities of Gold is one of the best well-written and imaginative cartoons ever to be aired on television. The story is innertwined with numerous historical facts, legends, and places mixed with a little bit of science fiction. It has a superb combination of action, mystery, and humor that makes for a truly entertaining adventure.

It is a great story for both kids and adults.

Back in the 80's my sibling and I would watch this during the summer, or if we were home from school for various reasons... It seemed like Nick was sketchy about when the show would air, as we were never able to see the entire arc... still we loved this show. I had been tempted by the bootleg offers here and there over the years, but wanted a real legitimate DVD of these, so never purchased those. Finally Hulu began hosting episodes. I watched the first two with my kids and knew that I had to buy the entire series on DVD immediately... Shows are not this good any more, let alone Kids shows. The lovely wife made me hold this collection until Christmas, but on that day we started watching this as a family. We are one full disk (7 episodes) in and it is great. The kids love it, are learning a bit about central American mythology and history and enjoying a great show. Deeper characters and stories than you find elsewhere. My 9 year old loves that there is some ambiguity over who is good and bad... she reads lots of books and the typical Good/Bad dynamic of most children's shows is simple and somewhat boring. While certainly a chidren's show, this is deeper and more story and character oriented that most. It is fun and even if you didn't grow up watching it, it is a wonderful series.
I am finally getting to see the rest of the episodes I didn't when I was a kid, and also introducing my children to one of the best anime shows ever created.