Beautiful movie

Rating: Null/10 (5 March 2003)

Spirited Away tells the story of Chihiro, a young Japanese girl, who stumbles upon another realm whilst moving to a new house with her parents. She stumbles upon the realm with her parents and can sense something is wrong, whereas her parents don't seem to notice. She loses her parents and gets sucked into the realm which is full of strange creatures, Gods, witches, dragons etc. This particular area of the realm is a bath house for Gods, and she initially seems stuck here, but is determined to escape with her parents and return to the real world, but has many fascinating adventures on the way.
I found this movie was wonderful. A lot of comparison is made between Spirited Away (and others) and Disney movies, in that Spirited Away is far better, but in my opinion this is far from being related to a Disney feature. Firstly it seemed quite adult to me, and I wouldn't be happy with anyone younger than a teenager watching this. On several levels it isn't suitable for someone younger, and I don't think would be understood by someone younger either. Other than this the story is fantastic and imaginative, although there are definite parallels with the Wizard of Oz (young girl taken from "parents", wicked witch character, strange creatures). The animation is also good in the main. 4/5