Spirited Away [2003]

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Editorial reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
The highest grossing film in Japanese box-office history, Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away (Sen To Chihiro Kamikakushi) is a dazzling film that reasserts the power of drawn animation to create fantasy worlds. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and Lewis Carroll's Alice, Chihiro plunges into an alternate reality. On the way to their new home, the petulant adolescent and her parents find what they think is a deserted amusement park. Her parents stuff themselves until they turn into pigs, and Chihiro discovers they're trapped in a resort for traditional Japanese gods and spirits. An oddly familiar boy named Haku instructs Chihiro to request a job from Yubaba, the greedy witch who rules the spa. As she works, Chihiro's untapped qualities keep her from being corrupted by the greed that pervades Yubaba's mini-empire. In a series of fantastic adventures, she purges a river god suffering from human pollution, rescues the mysterious No-Face, and befriends Yubaba's kindly twin, Zeniba. The resolve, bravery and love Chihiro discovers within herself enable her to aid Haku and save her parents. The result is a moving and magical journey, told with consummate skill by one of the masters of contemporary animation. --Charles Solomon

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2009-01-08 rating:
Love THIS film
This has got to be the best film in the world ever. WOW. it really blew my mind. A must for everyone especially if you have never seen this type of film before. It works on so many levels for adults and kids alike. Love it. Love it. Love it.

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review by: date: 2008-09-13 rating:
kids love it
My 7 & 10 year olds love this and watch it lots. I was pleasantly surprised as it is not the usual box office, Disney wonder. I first heard of it when Jonathon Ross raved about it. He was right - the animation is great and the story is quite interesting (to me) and fascinating (to my children). Nice to see eastern cartoons that are not just kungfu rubbish, but are well thought-out.

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review by: Mariam Zahedi date: 2008-08-27 rating:
I Liked It, But Not As Much As I Thought I Would
There are plenty of reviews on here saying how great this film is and explaining it's story so I won't do any of that here.

I watched this film dubbed in English, so it may have lost some of the magic that certain films only have in their original language, but that still couldn't take away from the actual story in front of me which, if I'm being honest, I didn't think was great enough to deserve all these 5 stars. Once you get passed the sheer absurdness of the whole thing the film is enjoyable and very funny, but that's about it. I wasn't left with any feeling of enlightenement, or that I'd just witnessed one of the greatest films ever made (as some reviews on here might indicate).

I'd like to see it again, because I really do wonder whether I've missed something that all these reviewers seem to have seen, but I can't really recomend this film too warmly because I just didn't really 'get' it - if that makes sense. This film most definately won't be everyone's cup of tea, so be careful before spending £10 or so buying it because you may well never get to the end.

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review by: date: 2008-08-27 rating:
Extraordinary, beautiful, haunting and unforgettable
My young nephews and nieces settled me down with them over the August Bank Holidays to watch `Spirited Away', which I duly did to humour them, not having ever watched an Anime film before. As the film rolled I became increasingly transfixed and mesmerised.

This was no cutesy Disney cartoon but a deeply complex and beautifully intricately woven web of extraordinarily beautiful images with deep, dramatic undertones, resonances and subtexts. The image of `No Face' in particular stays in my mind and decorates my dreams (in the nicest way possible), such was its vividness and dramatic reverberation, as does the journey of the train through the swampy everglades by night.

I recommend this film unreservedly to all, adults and children alike, and truly envy all those who will be watching it for the very first time. The quality of the imagery is unsurpassed and the storyline utterly compelling. The film received many awards, including the second Oscar ever awarded for Best Animated Feature, the first Anime film to win an Academy Award, also winning the Golden Bear at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival. Oh, you lucky, lucky people, to be watching this extraordinary film for the first time!


review by: harryville date: 2008-02-07 rating:
Probably the best film I've ever seen
I just loved this film so much, watching it felt like a dream. I'm always sceptical about films with so much hype but this lived up to it and more: The story is beautiful, the animation is superb and the setting and characters ooze with charm. After watching this I am gradually checking out the Ghibli back catalogue and am yet to be disappointed by any of them. Howl's moving castle would have to be my favouite so far (After Spirited away of course!)

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Similar categories

Video . DVD & VHS . Categories . Children's . All Children's
Video . DVD & VHS . Categories . Anime . All Anime
Video . DVD & VHS . Refinements . Format (binding_browse-bin) . DVD
Video . DVD & VHS . Refinements . BBFC Rating (intended_use_browse-bin) . PG
Video . DVD & VHS . Refinements . Editions (feature_two_browse-bin) . Standard Edition
Video . DVD & VHS . Refinements . Region(feature_browse-bin) . Region 2
Video . DVD & VHS . Refinements . Release Date (feature_three_browse-bin) . 2000 and later
Video . DVD & VHS . Refinements . Language (theme_browse-bin) . English

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