Spirited Away into a fantastic world of imagination

Rating: 9/10 (4 January 2002)

Having heard many good reviews about Miyazaki's work, I decided to watch 'Spirited Away' one weekend. Fully expecting a Japanese work, imagine my surprise when the dialogue that came out of the characters' mouths was in Mandarin! Though initially disappointed by the dubbing 'glitch', I fully enjoyed the film and was throughly captivated by the depth of imagination and the beautiful realisation of the background visuals.

Though the film has been compared to 'Alice in Wonderland', the similarity is on the surface only, as in both films centre on a young female protagonist who journeys through a fantastical landscape full of monsters and creatures. In 'Spirited Away', Chihiro embarks on a journey of self-discovery to find an inner strength and optimism that you would not have imagine existed in the character at the beginning of the film. It also showed how these precious qualities that she found in herself had a tremendous and positive impact on the monsters and creatures in the strange world she came to. Whereas Alice is somewhat separated from Wonderland, a discordant note in its landscape though she may journey through it.

Surprisingly, there is not a single detestable character in the film, even Yu-baaba the villain of the show. The variety of creatures (with some really lovable ones) would delight your little ones and the richness of the story and beautiful animation will captivate and engage the grown-ups.
All in all, a truly excellent film!