Sophie, whose curse includes an inability to talk about the spell on her, takes on cleaning duties for the vastly dirty travelling castle.Īfter a rattling first hour, Howl's Moving Castle loses some steam in its long complicated denouement. There she meets Howl's wisecracking fire demon, Calcifer (Billy Crystal, perhaps the most obvious concession to North American taste), who makes the moving castle operate. She sets out, gingerly, to find the castle, in the hope that Howl can reverse her curse.Īlong the way she meets a scarecrow (one of several parallels to The Wizard of Oz), who bounces along on his Pogo-stick-like pole and leads her to Howl's castle. This slow-moving old woman, who discovers an outspokenness and determination she lacked as a girl, becomes the movie's heroine. Moments later, they are chased through alleyways by the witch's slimy henchmen, and in the next scene Sophie is cursed by the witch and transformed into a 90-year-old woman (now voiced by Jean Simmons). One day, when Sophie is being harassed by a couple of soldiers, a handsome caped rescuer suddenly appears by her side - the wizard Howl. When the King goes to war against a neighbouring country, his chief sorceress (Blythe Danner) issues a recruitment call for all citizens with magic powers. Howl's arch-enemy is the Witch of the Wasteland (Lauren Bacall), who looks like an overfed society matron and rides around in a sedan chair carried by giant leeches dressed as footmen. Inside lives a handsome playboy wizard called Howl (Christian Bale) who, according to local legend, likes to literally steal the hearts of young girls. Outside town, there's also the moving castle of the title, a huge Monty Pythonish contraption that crosses the country on giant bird legs, billowing smoke as it goes. There are incongruous shark-like airplanes flying overhead, and evil spirits, wizards and a witch hiding on the edge of town.
HOWLS MOVING CASTLE MOVIE RATING MOVIE
The movie starts in what appears to be a late-19th-century, Central European town of cuckoo-clock houses and cobbled alleys, where plain, shy 18-year-old Sophie (Emily Mortimer) works in the milliner's shop her family runs.īut this isn't quite Europe, either past or future. Howl's Moving Castle was adapted from a 1986 children's novel by English writer Diana Wynne Jones. Miyazaki's films depend on a guileless perspective, an effect achieved through grandeur of design and strangeness of juxtapositions that border on surrealism. They include Pixar mastermind John Lasseter (Toy Story, A Bug's Life) and Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc.), but Miyazaki's world has little to do with their pop-culture-stuffed, wisecracking comedies. Paradoxically, the English-language adaptation of his film comes to us through his fans at Disney and Pixar, the American companies that have abandoned traditional animation for the computer-assisted variety. He and his team of artists use traditional hand-drawn animation, scanned into the computer.
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Part of the pleasure in Miyazaki's work is the knowledge that he's the last of the breed. Characters' fates unfold against stunningly detailed vistas of mountains, forests and vast destruction caused by war and industry.
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Miyazaki is an old-fashioned fabulist, a creator of worlds where spiritual and physical transformations take place where nature, in league with magical beings, is in conflict with human greed and violence. You might also say he's the Japanese answer to Ovid, or the Brothers Grimm or Tolkien. Hayao Miyazaki, the creator of milestone Japanese animation films such as Kiki's Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, is often referred to as the Walt Disney of anime. I highly recommend this movie and unlike Calcifer I hope your bacon doesn’t burn.Howl's Moving Castle Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki Featuring the voices of Billy Crystal, Emily Mortimer, Jean Simmons, Christian Bale and Lauren Bacall There’s also a sentient fire, Calcifer, who’s adorable snarky. There’s a large theme of confidence and family within in this movie and it’s very heartwarming. Sophie thinks there’s nothing to worry about because she views herself as anything but beautiful. She then sets out on a quest to get the curse removed by the witch and runs into a moving castle, home of the wizard known as Howl Pendragon, horribly powerful and rumored to eat the hearts of beautiful girls.
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Which comes in handy when she’s cursed by a witch and turned into an old woman. Sophie (Sofi), works in a hat shop and despite being young she acts far older than she is. When an unconfident young woman is cursed with an old body by a spiteful witch, her only chance of breaking the spell lies with a self-indulgent yet insecure young wizard and his companions in his legged, walking castle.
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My absolute favorite being Howl’s Moving Castle which shares a title with a book it’s loosely based off of? I question that and say loosely based on because there’s not tons that make it match and both are great in their own rights.