Spirited Away
by Hayao Miyazaki
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DVD Cover Information
Director: Hayao MiyazakiDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); French (Original Language); Japanese (Original Language)
Format: Animated, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 125 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-04-15
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Walt Disney Video
Movie Reviews of Spirited Away
Movie Review: Not my favorite Miyazaki movie
Summary: 2 Stars
I've seen four Miyazaki movies: My Neighbor Totoro (weird but cute), Kiki's Delivery Service (adorable!), Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (excellent movie!), and most recently, Spirited Away. It seems the aforementionaed film has recieved huge amounts of critical acclaim and was a success at the box office. I seem to be in the minority here, because I was teetering on the edge between giving it two or three stars.
Whoever said Spirited Away was "a triumph in art, but also a failure in storytelling" took the words right out of my mouth. I think it was a very imaginative film--- perhaps a bit too much so, as the creators seem to be focusing too much on being imaginative and too little on providing an engaging, entertaining story for audiences. I found the plot to be rather flimsy; many of the events seem to be totally random, and there are simply too many subplots and that sort of thing for the film to really be enjoyable. In some contexts, such as in Alice in Wonderland, that would be okay-- but this movie, in direct contrast to Alice in Wonderland, takes its bizarre self very, very seriously. I don't recall there being much in the way of humor either, though the Stink Spirit scene was pretty funny.
On the plus side, the animation was exceedingly beautiful and loaded with background detail. Unlike most anime, which are so cheap-looking they're painful to watch, Spirited Away features some of the best animation I've seen in any 2-D animated film.
In short, Spirited Away is interesting in its own, 2-and-a-half-hour-long way, but I would only reccomend it to intellectuals and Miyazaki completists.
Summary of Spirited Away
From one of the most celebrated filmmakers in the history of animated cinema comes the most acclaimed film of 2002. Hayao Miyazaki's latest triumph, filled with astonishing animation and epic adventure, is a dazzling masterpiece for the ages. It's a "wonderfully welcoming work of art that's as funny and entertaining as it is brilliant, beautiful, and deep" (Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal). SPIRITED AWAY is a wondrous fantasy about a young girl, Chihiro, trapped in a strange new world of spirits. When her parents undergo a mysterious transformation, she must call upon the courage she never knew she had to free herself and return her family to the outside world. An unforgettable story brimming with creativity, SPIRITED AWAY will take you on a journey beyond your imagination. "To enter the world of Hayao Miyazaki is to experience a kind of lighthearted enchantment that is unique to the world of animation" (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times). It's a fantastic tale the whole family will want to experience over and over again.The highest grossing film in Japanese box-office history (more than $234 million), Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away (Sen To Chihiro Kamikakushi) is a dazzling film that reasserts the power of drawn animation to create fantasy worlds. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and Lewis Carroll's Alice, Chihiro (voice by Daveigh Chase--Lilo in Disney's Lilo & Stitch) plunges into an alternate reality. On the way to their new home, the petulant adolescent and her parents find what they think is a deserted amusement park. Her parents stuff themselves until they turn into pigs, and Chihiro discovers they're trapped in a resort for traditional Japanese gods and spirits. An oddly familiar boy named Haku (Jason Marsden) instructs Chihiro to request a job from Yubaba (Suzanne Pleshette), the greedy witch who rules the spa. As she works, Chihiro's untapped qualities keep her from being corrupted by the greed that pervades Yubaba's mini-empire. In a series of fantastic adventures, she purges a river god suffering from human pollution, rescues the mysterious No-Face, and befriends Yubaba's kindly twin, Zeniba (Pleshette again). The resolve, bravery, and love Chihiro discovers within herself enable her to aid Haku and save her parents. The result is a moving and magical journey, told with consummate skill by one of the masters of contemporary animation. MPAA Rated: PG ("Some scary moments") --Charles Solomon
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