Spirited Away (2001)

Spirited Away (2001)

7/10

 

Starring the voices of

Rumi Hiiragi

Miyu Irino

Mari Natsuki

Takeshi Naito

Directed by Hayao Miyazaki

It is hard to find a cartoon that can please both those who love both anime and animations; this movie is one that does, the craftiness of the script, the whole new world and fantasy is all well glued together all you need is the imagination to be able to access this Japanese Alice in wonderland.

Spirited Away is a critical acclaimed film and it finds its way to the top of many notable lists of greatest animated films of all time. During its release it was the highest grossing Japanese film ever and in the 75^th Academy Awards it won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

This 2001 Japanese animated film is written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki who is a Japanese film director, animator, manga artist and screenwriter with a career that has spanned over fifty years. His films are often about humanity's relationship with nature or humanity and technology. The protagonists in his films are usually strong, independent girls or young women. This like the movie he also wrote and directed before this Princess Mononoke (1997) are classics in their own rights. His career in animation has led to many comparing him to Walt Disney.

The movie plot starts with Ten-year-old Chihiro Ogino and her parents who were traveling to their new home when her father decides to take a short cut which got them lost.

While they kept moving they strolled into another world where Chihiro lost both her parents and she was being hunted and disliked as she was the only human in the world she was in.

Chihiro’s journey led her to meet the twin grandmas, a dragon, a no face spirit that can eat anything in sight and she also met a giant baby who is afraid of germs. Now Chihiro most always remember her name so she would not forget she is a human and be able to tell her parents apart from the pigs all this with her trying to find her way back to her world.

Spirited away is based on Miyazaki friend's ten year old daughter, he decided to make a movie for her and her friends who come for vacation in his cabin with his family.

With the characters mostly hand drawn and a budget of $19 million dollars, Miyazaki and his production crew decided to keep the graphics simple so that the focus of the movie will not be diverted from the story.

The English adaptation of the film was done by Walt Disney Pictures under the supervision of Pixar animator John Lasseter; also on the production crew was Beauty and the Beast (1991) co-director Kirk Wise who acted as the director in this English adaptation and Aladdin (1992) producer Donald W. Ernst who was also the producer in this flick.

I still stand to say this is one of the best animations out there, the fantasy level is high and the twist and turns that it brings makes the whole movie very interesting and a nice movie to see with the family.