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Spirited AwayRating:
Release Date: 15 April, 2003 Retail Price: $29.99 OUR Price: $19.99 You SAVE: $10.00! Cast: |
Spirited Away Reviews
A FANTASTIC MASTERPIECE!
Have you ever watched a film, or in this case an anime, and not cared about any metaphors or allegories hidden within the film? The kind you don't want to dissect and over-analyze? Well, this is one of those type of films, rare indeed, in which you just allow your suspension-of-disbelief to take hold of you and carry you off on that magic carpet ride in your imagination. Hayao Miyazaki is just this person that did this for me when I viewed this film. I know there are hundreds of reviews here, and one more is not going to matter as far as those who have not seen it, but this is truly a fantastic, magical and genuine masterpiece!
"Grave of the Fireflies" will probably always be my favorite animated film, however, this is my favorite 'happy' anime. Truly a pure joy to watch. I am glad that there are creative artist's such as Hayao Miyazaki in the world, and I sure know that when I first saw this film four-years-ago, my two daughters were glad too. I do not wish to spoil this film for any of you who have not seen this delightfully enchanting film. This is a film that you need to watch if you have not already. I don't want to put any spoilers in here you might see. I would just add, go out and buy it, I am sure you will enjoy the film. And it's not just for children either. Adults like it too! Highest Recommendation.
A great family film
The other day I ran into a friend of mine at a gas station/video store. She was asking me whether a certain family movie was appropriate for her 3-4 year old daughter. I said yeah(even though it's not the greatest movie) and I got to thinking whether to suggest a Ghibli film. Problem is is that most of them aren't exactly "for all ages" since there's no dance-y numbers, obvious comic relief and easy to follow plots. So we have Spirited Away, which despite being an excellent film, might not be the first one you should use to test your kid(s) on Studio Ghibli films.
Chihiro and her parents are travelling when they come across a tunnel. They go through it to end up in an abandoned town which has a lot of food. Everyone except Chihiro eats only for them to turn into pigs. Eventually, she ends up in a bath house which caters to gods and they're not particularly interested in humans. She has to somehow manage to escape the bath house and get home with the help of some friends.
Now just to clarify what I meant in the first paragraph, this is a 2 hour film and its quite packed with information and characters. Not to mention it's pretty much a talky film with no songs, or gags and jokes a la Shrek or even Toy Story. In many ways, you can consider this more a film for 8-13 year olds than 3-4. They'd probably like how colorful it is but this isn't like Dora the Explorer or Spongebob where the accessibility for a child is instant. As for the scary scenes mentioned, it's not really a big deal, depending on their tolerance. Let's put it this way: did they survive the dwarves hunting the Witch in Snow White or the Ursula fight in Little Mermaid? Yes? Then they'll handle it.
There's plenty to like here. First, the animation is of course great, largely hand-drawn which is certainly even more impressive watching it. And like Miyazaki characters, there's no black and white/good and evil characters which makes them all the more human and likable. Although some might not like Yubaba which qualifies has one of the more instantly unlikable characters. The voice acting like the other dubs is likable but I usually click the Japanese option right away. Not that I'm against English dubs, in fact that's how I watched Fullmetal Alchemist, it's just I tend to prefer the original.
What should you watch first? Well Totoro is probably likely as well as Kiki's Delivery Service but oddly, the most kid friendly is probably the Cat Returns since there's very little scary parts and it's not plot-heavy. But Spirited Away is rightly an animated classic you should watch.
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