Excellent! Nightmarishly surreal yet charming at the same time.

Rating: 10/10 (16 October 2002)

This is a film that deserves a much wider release than it is currently getting. Taking a cue from Alice in Wonderland and Wizard of Oz, Hayao Miyazaki takes the fairy tale conventions and gives us one of his finest works yet, beating the pants off everything he has done before.
In a world where Japanese animation gets a bit of a bad rap for its adult-content (despite the fact that it's no worse than North American mainstream cinema), comes a film that both adults and children can enjoy. It's best that you walk in with no expectations as I did.