arigato, miyazaki-san!

Rating: Null/10 (10 July 2005)

I went into the theatre expecting great things from "Howl's Moving Castle" (the English title), being a Miyazaki fan to begin with, but this movie absolutely blew me away! The animation is, as usual, gorgeous; the landscapes are especially beautiful, and few films can compare to the detail of such intricacies as one finds on, say, the castle. But this movie is so much more than pretty graphics-- the plot is interesting, the characters are complex, and the message strikes at the heart of a lot of what is wrong with this world today. A great deal of it has to do with the evils of war, but I especially loved the messages about true beauty and love that this film had to offer. It's been a long time since I've been teary-eyed at the theatre ^.^ Miyazaki also does a great job with the balance between reality, fantasy, and sci-fi, which is always a true pleasure to watch. (I should also probably inform English-speaking fans that the English dub is superb, better by far than most of the abysmal anime dubbing I've heard) I would recommend this film to anyone, whether you're eight or eighty. The whole world deserves to know what an genius Hayao Miyazaki is!