Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi, lit. "Sen and Chihiro Spirited Away") is a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy-adventure film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film tells the story of Chihiro Ogino, a sullen ten-year-old girl who, in the process of moving to a new neighborhood, becomes trapped in an alternate reality that is inhabited by spirits and monsters. After her parents are transformed into pigs by the witch Yubaba, Chihiro takes a job working in Yubaba's bathhouse in order to find a way to free herself and her parents and escape back to the human world.

Miyazaki wrote the script after he decided the film would be based on his friend's ten-year-old daughter, who came to visit his house each summer. At the time, Miyazaki was developing two personal projects, but they were rejected. Production of Spirited Away began in 2000. During production, Miyazaki based the film's settings at a museum in Koganei, Tokyo. However, Miyazaki realized the film would be over three hours and decided to cut out several parts of the story for its July 27, 2001 release. Pixar director John Lasseter, a fan of Miyazaki, was approached by Walt Disney Pictures to supervise an English-language translation for the film's North American release. Lasseter hired Kirk Wise as director and Donald W. Ernst as producer of the adaptation.

When released, Spirited Away became the most successful film in Japanese history, grossing over $274 million worldwide, and receiving critical acclaim. The film overtook Titanic (at the time the top grossing film worldwide) in the Japanese box office to become the highest-grossing film in Japanese history. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 75th Academy Awards, the Golden Bear at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival (tied with Bloody Sunday) and is among the top ten in the BFI list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14. In 2005, Spirited Away was voted the 8th greatest cartoon in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Cartoons poll behind The Simpsons, Tom and Jerry, South Park, Toy Story, Family Guy, Shrek and The Lion King.

Oh goodness, I cannot begin to tell you how important this film is.


Spirited Away is easily one of the most vivid examples of the heights to which human imagination can soar. There has never been a film like this, there will never be a film like this again. It is one of those peculiar instances where the medium of film crosses paths with cinema as an art, making full use of both to produce a masterpiece that is overwhelming in its power to captivate and amaze.

Miyazaki is the world's greatest living animator, revered by all of Japan, and all of the animation world as a great master whose animation has given the world an immense amount of joy and magic. He might be the most important individual in animation since Walt Disney. The men certainly share a keen ability to imagine entire worlds from scratch, giving us something that did not exist before.


To provide a summary or synposis would be useless; this film defies description, as any truly great film does. But, if you wish to see what exactly it is that makes this film so great, consider a stunning sequence where Chihiro is on the train gliding across the water. Not a word is spoken- no words are needed, only the haunting score in the background and Chihiro's expression, thoughtful and solemn, yet filled with hope and wisdom. Animation had to go a long way before it could bring about a scene like that, but for all the hard work, it has paid off mightily. This film is a triumph for animation, and the art of cinema as a whole.


An enthusiastic, well-deserved A+

A work of genious. Amazingly animated and with such brilliant ideas that Disney should pale in shame. (A+)

Also, if this movie WASN't anime, and was fully produced by Disney, it wouldn't be praised as much as we are giving it.

That;'s because

1) The story is best told in anime anyway. At least, I couldn't imagine seeing the film in traditional animation after seeing it in anime.
2) Disney has this idea that a movie has to have some humor in it to be considered good, and the humor Disney would put into the story would lessen the quality significantly. The movie was far too mature, IMO, to have such humor in it. Not to say Disney humor is bad...it has been in recent years, sans Emporer's New Groove. But really, would you want ENG humor in Spirited Away anyway? I certainly wouldn't.

This movie is so overrated. I went and saw it because everyone was talking about how astounding it was and was very disappointed. It was actually really boring and uninvolving. The visuals were nice enough but it's in no way the masterpiece that many consider it. Then again I'm not a fan of anime at all so my opinion might be a bit biast.

5/10 ( C )

but you aren't downing ENG right? haha..cause that movie was funny as heck.