Spirited Away (2001)
Also known as "Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi,Sen and the Mysterious Disappearance of Chihiro"
Take your kids, your parents, your friends and colleagues and give in to Miyazaki's sweet, haunting spell
Starring: Rumi Hîragi, Miyu Irino, Mari Natsuki, Takashi Naitô, Yasuko Sawaguchi, Tatsuya Gashuin, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Yumi Tamai, Yo Oizumi, Koba Hayashi, Tsunehiko Kamijô, Takehiku Ono, Bunta Sugawara
Director: Hayao Miyazuki
Running Time: 125 minutes
US MPAA rating: N/AUK BBFC rating: PG
Adventure, Animation, Drama, Family, Fantasy
Here's a recipe for an enchanting spell: carefully distil 'The Odyssey', 'The Aeneid' and 'Alice in Wonderland', add a dollop of Grimms' fairy tales, a soupçon of 'The Sorceror's Apprentice' and a sprig of 'Cupid and Psyche', and then sprinkle liberally with Japanese demonology. Garnish with exquisite hand-painted backgrounds, just the odd bit of computer animation, and characters who range from ridiculously cute to menacingly powerful to just plain enigmatic. Mix it all up, and finish it off with a generous helping of surrealism, and you will have Hayao Miyazaki's 'Spirited Away', deserved winner of the Academy Award for best animated film and the top grossing movie of all time in its native Japan.
En route to their new home, grumpy 10-year old Chihiro and her mother and father become lost, and stop at a strange abandoned town 'in the middle of nowhere'. There, while her parents help themselves to an unattended feast, Chihiro encounters a boy called Haku who warns her to leave before it gets dark. Immediately, the light starts to fade, ghosts begin appearing everywhere, her parents turn into pigs, and the whole town has become surrounded by a vast body of water. In order to avoid being eaten or transformed into an animal, Chihiro agrees to work for the identity-stealing witch Yunibaba in 'the bathhouse where 8000 gods can rest their weary bones'. She endures a series of bizarre trials, occasionally assisted by the mysterious Haku (who she is sure she has met before) and others, in her bid to get home safely with her parents.
This brief synopsis does little to convey the rich complexity of the shadow world which Miyazaki has created in 'Spirited Away'. With more ideas in its two hours than you will find in a dozen Disney cartoons, this animated allegory of the passage from childhood to adolescent responsibility (with a subtle environmentalist streak) replaces straightforward narrative with dream logic and hallucinatory metamorphoses, and constantly eludes expectations through inventive leaps of the imagination. It races along with the speed of a bullet train, visiting weird, enchanted places the likes of which have never been seen before.
With any luck, 'Spirited Away' will open up the West to what the Japanese have long recognised - that Miyazaki is a visionary genius whose animated œuvre shows an originality, beauty and awesome strangeness beyond comparison to anything else on the big screen. Take your kids, your parents, your friends and colleagues, and give in to Miyazaki's sweet, haunting spell, and you will find yourself transported to a magical place, where you can, like Chihiro, forget for a time all the details of your everyday life.
Simply a masterpiece.
It's Got: Three grumbling disembodied heads, an army of star-eating sootballs, a giant baby, stink gods, paper birds, a mournful No-Face and a gloomy one-way commuter train to the underworld.
It Needs: Absolutely nothing.
Alternatives: Alice in Wonderland, Princess Mononoke, Porco Rosso, My Neighbour Totoro, Laputa: Castle in the Sky
Summary: 'Spirited Away' is a masterpiece of animation that has more than enough in it to keep young and old alike entertained, enchanted and awestruck.
Review Date: 18th September 2003
External Links
Official Web Site
Spirited Away at the IMDB
Comments20 Comments |
| What can I say, this movie was absolutely amazing. Not only did Miyazuki pay attention to the smallest of detail, but the simple, yet breath-taking story makes this movie such a joy to watch. Although it may seem like it's intended for children, there are many elements in this movie that would please both the young and old. It would be a shame to not to see this movie. Truly amazing. |
| Comment by:- lostcat | | 23 August 2004 | ip: logged |
| It's amazing and all, but it seriously needs a real ending...like when Aku says "I'll see you soon," HE DOESN'T!!! You should follow Sen to her house and a river's by her house and Aku is there. |
| Comment by:- CoolKat | | 12 September 2004 | ip: logged |
| I totally agree with you, CoolKat |
| Comment by:- CourkyP | | 12 September 2004 | ip: logged |
| lostcat, sure its amazing and all but you didnt say anything about how the ending suddenly stops in the car...THE ENDING IS IMPORTANT PART YOU KNOW! Without a proper ending you dont understand properly...The ending wraps up the story! I totally agree with CoolKat and CourkyP |
| Comment by:- DogBrain | | 12 September 2004 | ip: logged |
| this film is very amazing |
| Comment by:- lorielyn torres | lorielynth@yahoo.com | 16 September 2004 | ip: logged |
| This is one of the best movies I've ever seen! |
| Comment by:- Anonomis | | 24 September 2004 | ip: logged |
| this damn stupid movie sucks.... the animation is perfect but.... where's the story? a girl which parents turn out pigs and in a strange and stupid world where old big-head womem uses kame-hame-ha to destroy a brown monster..... oh well... nice thing |
| Comment by:- CloudcamaleonIV | www.strubnyub.com | 26 September 2004 | ip: logged |
| da best movie on earth |
| Comment by:- Anonymous | | 08 October 2004 | ip: logged |
| i dont like japanese movies so i give it -10000000000! |
| Comment by:- da cool chick | | 15 October 2004 | ip: logged |
| just joking i give it a 3.5 hahaha |
| Comment by:- da cool chick | | 15 October 2004 | ip: logged |
| when i first saw this movie i was blown away! every aspect of the movie was spot on from the animation to the music to the japanese culture blended into the movie, i can watch it again and again, Great movie!!! |
| Comment by:- drunkenmonk | | 22 October 2004 | ip: logged |
| i luv the movie, i wish it wouldnt end so suddenly tho =( |
| Comment by:- FallenAngel | | 28 October 2004 | ip: logged |
| The beautiful graphics in the movie add context to the very detailed computer animations. This seat gripping adventure story may seem like a kids flick but entertains adults alike. Though the movie is spectacular and would be a shame to miss, the ending is a pathetic attempt to wrap up the movie. |
| Comment by:- Cute Angelz | www.movie-gazette.com/cinerevi... | 08 November 2004 | ip: logged |
| I think the movie is just perfect the way it was made. I don't want anything added or deleted. It was a story about Sen while she was in that "world". It would just be overkill if we had to follow Sen until she grows up and meets Haku-sama. Besides it does bring a question to mind, ity just didn't tell you a story. |
| Comment by:- cream | | 17 November 2004 | ip: logged |
| This movie is amazing! The animation is incredibly gorgeous and breathtaking! Two thumbs way up for this! |
| Comment by:- p | | 07 December 2004 | ip: logged |
| This film was the best I have seen in a long time. I think it would have been cool if they a follow up you could read if you wanted to of what happened. But this was the greatest movie!!I love Haku!! |
| Comment by:- Kisara Amane | | 14 December 2004 | ip: logged |
| This is one of the best animated/japenese films made. 9/10 |
| Comment by:- Daniel | | 24 December 2004 | ip: logged |
| AWWWWWWWWSSOM |
| Comment by:- myob | | 30 December 2004 | ip: logged |
| brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiilllllllllllllllllllllll it is the best movie ever and i give it 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 out of 10 |
| Comment by:- lizzie | ip: logged | 01 January 2005 | ip: logged |
| the movie was great !! you better watch it , its amazing but if you cant see the ending you'll never understand everything |
| Comment by:- torch | | 06 August 2005 | ip: logged |
