How the plot has been spirited away...

Rating: 1/10 (13 August 2004)

I watched this movie at the recommendation of a trusted friend, but I am afraid I have to confess that this is one of the worst films I have yet come across. The animation technique is technically well executed, but the plot got spirited away in the process. At every instant new, completely unmotivated themes come up -- certainly "imaginative", but not "creative", as another friend put it very succinctly. The beginning is intriguing and raises high expectations, but I cannot help but think that the writer and director increasingly lost any sense of what the film should be about. Throughout most the second half, so-called evil 'stink spirits' run around vomiting non-stop (mildly amusing to watch), and towards the very end the film deteriorates into a sentimental, unoriginal story of true love and a misunderstood, wrongly resented witch. Oh my god, what a complete waste of time.