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 Hauru no ugoku shiro [Howl's Moving Castle] 

What grade would you give this film?
A 40%  40%  [ 6 ]
B 53%  53%  [ 8 ]
C 7%  7%  [ 1 ]
D 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
F 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Total votes : 15

 Hauru no ugoku shiro [Howl's Moving Castle] 
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College Boy Z

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Post Hauru no ugoku shiro [Howl's Moving Castle]
Howl's Moving Castle

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Howl's Moving Castle (ハウルの動く城 Hauru no Ugoku Shiro) is a 2004 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli and loosely based on Diana Wynne Jones' novel of the same name. Mamoru Hosoda, director of one episode and two movies from the Digimon series, was originally selected to direct but abruptly left the project, leaving the then-retired Miyazaki to take up the director's role.

The film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 5, 2004 and was released in Japanese theaters on November 20, 2004. It went on to gross $231.7 million worldwide, making it one of the most financially successful Japanese films in history. The film was subsequently dubbed into English by Pixar's Peter Docter and distributed in North America by Walt Disney Pictures. It received a limited release in the United States and Canada beginning June 10, 2005 and was released nationwide in Australia on September 22 and in the UK the following September. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 78th Academy Awards in 2006.

Wynne Jones's novel allows Miyazaki to combine a plucky young woman and a mother figure into a single character in the heroine, Sophie. She starts out as an 18-year-old hat maker, but then a witch's curse transforms her into a 90-year-old gray head. Sophie is horrified by the change at first. Nevertheless she learns to embrace it as a liberation from anxiety, fear and self-consciousness. The change might be a blessed chance for adventure.


Mon Jun 06, 2005 2:58 pm
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Extraordinary
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Can't. Freaking. Wait.

If my theatre gets it, I'm there the first weekend.


Mon Jun 06, 2005 5:44 pm
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saw it .. comments later.


Mon Jun 06, 2005 10:22 pm
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Beautiful to look at, loved the mixing of magick and technology (played Arcanum some time ago), but movie was nothing special.

And rushed ending is...well, silly, if not stupid.

C+


Tue Jun 07, 2005 11:31 am
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Nebs, what did you think of Spirited Away and Princess? And how does this compare?


Tue Jun 07, 2005 9:08 pm
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Haven't seen Spirited Away still (hopefully on weekend will), but Princess Mononoke was fantastic to me, I'd consider it one of the best cartoons.


Wed Jun 08, 2005 8:23 am
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Saw the new dubbed version today - some interesting voice choices too - Christian Bale, Lauren Bacall, Billy Crystal...

We saw it this afternoon and it is, of course, stunningly beautiful art and animation - but I would suggest that this is not a Miyazaki movie for newcomers to his work. The story, though based on an English children's book, has a very Japanese tone to it, and is very obscure and meandering in it's way. If you're a Miyazaki virgin, look to almost any of his back catalogue first - personally, I recommend Kiki or Totoro or Spirited Away - but they're all world class animated movies in their own right. If you've seen every Miyazaki movie - well by all means go and see it on the big screen - before it is bumped from the theatres by something like Bionicles 3...

4 out of 5 (for the fans)


Fri Jun 10, 2005 6:11 pm
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review up on my page

http://www.worldofkj.com/Arsalan/HMC.php


Mon Jun 13, 2005 9:41 pm
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Extraordinary
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Excellent review baba. :thumbsup: I'd say watch Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away if you want to see Miyazaki's strongest work.

Being the huge Miyazaki fan (and a young guy who can't drive...), I watched a fansub (which kinda sucked) and really enjoyed it, but looking back on it the story was pretty thin and I didn't like how the film left a lot of things open... Eh, I don't know. Still, the animation is beautiful. I'll wait for the DVD release to give it a final grade but I'll give it a B+ for now.


Wed Jun 22, 2005 2:34 pm
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Better than the overrated SPIRITED AWAY, but doesn't hold a candle to Hayao Miyazaki's best CASTLE IN THE SKY. This is a beautifully animated but emotionally cold (for me at least) film which I enjoyed, but didn't find hugely memorable or lovable.

B-.


Thu Jun 23, 2005 2:31 am
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Gunslinger wrote:
Better than the overrated SPIRITED AWAY, but doesn't hold a candle to Hayao Miyazaki's best CASTLE IN THE SKY. This is a beautifully animated but emotionally cold (for me at least) film which I enjoyed, but didn't find hugely memorable or lovable.

B-.


Overrated eh, Hrmmm.

Wonders what you thought of Princess Mononock or however you spell it.

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Thu Jun 23, 2005 2:52 am
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Kindof disappointed to tell you the truth. I think that it is nowhere near Spirited Away

just a B for me.

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Thu Jun 30, 2005 4:50 pm
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I don't have the time to provide the thorough analysis that the film deserves, but sufficeth to say that it is hugely enjoyable, offers incredible animation, has a good story, contains the necessary Miyazakian moral backbone, and is, when it's all said and done, well above the average animated film but not of the same quality as Miyazaki's masterpiece, Spirited Away.


One observation I would like to share with everyone, though: there is a clear parallel made between the individual and society, revolving around the idea of beauty. Love for others is what makes one beautiful, not magic or technology. Similarly, a kingdom or country is strong not because of its prowess in war, which breeds ugliness and spreads hate, but because of the goodness of its people living in a peaceful and loving state. Fundamentally, I think this might be one of the most anti-war, pro-peace films of this decade. And it's effective on this front particularly because it's not centred on that issue, but on the love of a young woman for a young man. But then again, it's the young men and women that war affects the most, especially those who are directly engaged in the fighting.


B+

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Wed Jan 04, 2006 12:25 am
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Spirited Away was a weird and crazy acid trip, but it had a sense of plot and direction - and heart - behind its madness, as well as a strong sense of Japanese culture surrounding its eccentricities.

Howl's Moving Castle meanders. It meanders from the beginning and never really recovers, part of which I'm going to blame on the source material which I've read and found quite horrendous, mainly in its attempts at trying to string together a cohesive plotline while the author insists on making each situation more colorful and fantastical than the last. Even while the reader really has no idea what's going on. And the film, for the most part, follows that blueprint.

It is a beautiful film, but that goes without saying.

C


Fri Mar 10, 2006 12:50 am
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Box wrote:
One observation I would like to share with everyone, though: there is a clear parallel made between the individual and society, revolving around the idea of beauty. Love for others is what makes one beautiful, not magic or technology. Similarly, a kingdom or country is strong not because of its prowess in war, which breeds ugliness and spreads hate, but because of the goodness of its people living in a peaceful and loving state. Fundamentally, I think this might be one of the most anti-war, pro-peace films of this decade. And it's effective on this front particularly because it's not centred on that issue, but on the love of a young woman for a young man. But then again, it's the young men and women that war affects the most, especially those who are directly engaged in the fighting.

Can you say overanalysis... I knew you could!


Fri Mar 10, 2006 5:40 am
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B-


This is the second underwhelming Miyazaki film I have seen in a row (after Kiki's Delivery Service). That is despite the fact that Spirited Away is among my all-time favorite animated features. The movie is beautifully designed and just like Spirited Away it is inventive and incredibly original. It is just a great eye candy, but it lacks a good coherent story to back up the visuals. The movie is confusing, too confusing for its own good. The ending seems way too rushed. It has a good message to convey. I must actually say that I agree with Box' analysis on it being very much anti-war. However, it does not carry the message effectively and eventually drowns it in great visuals.

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Tue Jun 13, 2006 10:35 pm
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Dr. Lecter wrote:
This is the second underwhelming Miyazaki film I have seen in a row (after Kiki's Delivery Service)...

Blasphemy! Watch Kiki a dozen more times and tell me it hasn't worked it's magic on you...


Wed Jun 14, 2006 1:26 am
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Dr. Lecter wrote:
B-


This is the second underwhelming Miyazaki film I have seen in a row (after Kiki's Delivery Service). That is despite the fact that Spirited Away is among my all-time favorite animated features. The movie is beautifully designed and just like Spirited Away it is inventive and incredibly original. It is just a great eye candy, but it lacks a good coherent story to back up the visuals. The movie is confusing, too confusing for its own good. The ending seems way too rushed. It has a good message to convey. I must actually say that I agree with Box' analysis on it being very much anti-war. However, it does not carry the message effectively and eventually drowns it in great visuals.


150 thousand percent agreed.

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Sat Jan 27, 2007 6:09 pm
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bradley witherberry wrote:
Dr. Lecter wrote:
This is the second underwhelming Miyazaki film I have seen in a row (after Kiki's Delivery Service)...

Blasphemy! Watch Kiki a dozen more times and tell me it hasn't worked it's magic on you...


Preferred Kiki to Howl no probs - guess maybe I liked it slightly more than Spirited Away, although I think that Spirited Away is better, if you get what I mean.

For me, the rewatch factor is absolutely vital in terms of Studio Ghibli's output - they do a neat balance (I'd say a very laudable balance) between films that actually blow you away, but might be a bit heavy/ too much to rewatch for a while, and films that have less of an impact at first, but you could happily put on every evening and half-watch - like having an old friend hanging around the place.

My order of preference is prob'ly quite controversial - to make matters worse, I actually think that some of the dubs are better than the subtitled versions, and judge them on a case-by-case basis...

My favourites based on how much I enjoyed them when I first saw them:

1 - Porco Rosso, screened in Oxford as The Crimson Pig (but thankfully not dubbed) - this was incredible because, having never seen a Miyazaki before (and only knowing that it was about a fighter pilot pig) I expected a sort of airborne Babe... imagine my surprise when I got the archetypal loner with a past - this is a moving study in self-loathing.
2 - Laputa (prefer it in the original language) - don't rewatch this too often, but was blown away by the scope of it the first time.
3 - The Cat Returns - I make no apologies!! - and watch it in English to aggrevate the offence
4 - Castle of Cagliostro, included because it's Miyazaki - I can see why Steven Spielberg loved it - straightforward family fun; prefer the dub (the dub I've got, anyway - there's a couple). Loved the music as always. The music seems to get worse with each of the newer ones - the piano melody of Spirited Away was nice, but would've preferred a full arrangement; can't even remember Mononoke (excluded from this list out of sheer disgust) or Howl.
5 - Totoro - preferred the dub - I thought that this was beautiful, but also very sad; I just thought that the mother would have a hard time settling back in, since she'd been in hospital for so long. I don't know why, but it popped into my head at the end and made it bittersweet.
6 - Kiki, original language all the way - the worst of the dub's offences was getting rid of the gorgeous poppy music!
7 - Nausicaa - the first time that I saw this, I was blinkered by Laputa + could only see this as a proto-version of that film - I now recant utterly. Weirdly, I had to buy a chinese import, and there's a Mandarin dub that I prefer (not that I speak Mandarin - I just love the sound of it).
8 - Spirited Away - beautiful, vivid animation, but wasn't too keen on the plot. Scenes like the train journey more than made up for it tho'.
9 - Howl - watched the film drunk and didn't regret being in said state. In fact, about a third of the way through, I started willfully making myself drunker.

Can't rate My Neighbours The Yamadas yet, because it keeps sticking halfway through on my crappy old player, but I expect it to steam in somewhere in the middle.

My top three in terms of which I'd enjoy more now, factoring in rewatchibility and all that stuff, would go:

1 - The Castle of Cagliostro.
2 - The Cat Returns.
3 - Nausicaa (so much more to it than foetal Laputa - I rank this nearly as high as William Hope Hodgeson's The Night Land in terms of sheer breadth of imagination for a vision of the future - that novel is hard to read but worth it).

Funny how, in the long term, lighthearted fun usually wins out with me... my top three in terms of which I think are "best", regardless of how likely I am to dig them out or watch them now:

1 - Nausicaa
2 - Porco Rosso
3 - Spirited Away (I recognise that its virtues are universal, whereas my reasons for not enjoying it so much are personal + idiosyncratic)


Sun Jan 28, 2007 4:16 pm
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One of miyasaki's weakest films but its still a good film, that there tells you how good miyasaki is.
I didnt find the magic i found with other miyasaki's greats, the story and characters arent memorable enough but its still a good story and its better than 90% of the other animated films released these days.This is on par with kiki's delivery service but below such great ones as Princess mononoke, spirited away, ect.

B

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Sun Jan 28, 2007 7:38 pm
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I suppose I can't help but love any Miyazaki film.

A
8.4/10


Mon Jan 29, 2007 2:49 am
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Post Re: Howl's Moving Castle
um the ending was very bad...

However the starting of the film is so nice...


B+

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Mon Oct 08, 2007 4:54 pm
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Post Re: Howl's Moving Castle
B+

I love it, and to think it and Corpse Bride lost to Wallace and Gromit. :disgust:

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Mon Oct 08, 2007 11:13 pm
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Post Re: Howl's Moving Castle
Corpse wrote:
B+

I love it, and to think it and Corpse Bride lost to Wallace and Gromit. :disgust:


Because Wallace and Gromit were better :)

Anyway's this film is great.................until its spectacular 3rd act collapse. What a mess.

B-

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Tue Oct 09, 2007 11:55 pm
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