View Larger Image |
Spirited Away Actor: Miyu Irino Director: Hayao Miyazaki Number of Items: 2 Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen Format: Animated, Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) Running Time: 132 minutes Studio: Walt Disney Home Video Region Code: 1 Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2003-04-15 Buy from Amazon |
 "Cute"Spirited away is a very cute fanatical film. I did not like tho how spoiled Chihiro is in the beginning, but i guess that is what this movie is kinda based around...changing her from a weak crybaby into a stronger more independant one...which does happen...the beginning just annoys me. I also did not like how slow the beginning is....i remember how i was sitting there watching it and going..."would you please hurry it up?!?" All this movie had going for it really is it's comedy...when it's funny...it's funny...end of story. I believ this film to be more suited to children around the age of 12 and under i suppose. It is very cute, but i dont think people who are older and a bit more suphisticated will like it too much....the story is just plain weird. So..it will make a nice gift for your kids..but not for yourself.  "Spirited Away...to Mike Nelson...""Spirited Away" and it's worldwide praise, is a testament to how gullible the mainstream public are to Anime now, this film, based on various fantasty aspects and plot cliques is really nothing that we have seen before from previous films of it's calibure. Haunted bath houses, magical creatures, the evolution of a spoiled brat into a stronger, more independent person, the quest to restore and find loved ones, a loved one turning into a beutfiul animal warrior...please tell me with a straight face you have not seen this kind of thing before, and that "Spirited Away" is original in it's execution and delivery of these alleged new concepts and plot twists, you can't, you won't, because you know just like I do this is a very weak movie when you have the capacity to carefully and logically THINK. Is "Spirited Away" a masterpeice? Maybye if they had produced it in 1993, and not several years later where other animes have long since used and surpassed what is featured in this movie here to greater advantage  "Astonishing film, miserable dub - very minor spoilers"I hardly need to enlarge on the praise already heaped on this film. It's almost impossible to exaggerate its visual quality, storytelling, characterization, and sheer mythopoeic sparkle. But thank goodness the DVD has the original Japanese track and English subtitles done by translators other than those who worked on the dub. The dub is simply awful. To begin with, the voice of one of the two younger principals is horribly miscast. For some reason, Disney thought it would be a good idea to cast an adult to voice a 12-year-old boy. (He's actually ageless, but this is his usual form.) The voice does not match the character. If this was a compromise to get quality acting then they failed: quality acting is not what they got. Jason Mardsen as Haku is uniformly wooden. Daveigh Chase ought to have been an appropriate choice for Chihiro, and under other circumstances she might have done a creditable job. Her voice is certainly pleasant enough. But she whines her way through the entire movie even as the character is supposed to be growing past her whineyness. With such a young actress the fault ought to be laid at the feet of whoever directed the English dub, since she simply can't be expected to have the life experience necessary to achieve an in-depth reading of a complex character on her own. So if the poor translation didn't serve to change the mood or sense of a scene, the actors often did, but no doubt they were often directed to do so. The American director seemed more than willing to sacrifice portions of Miyazaki's vision to put his own imprint on the film. When you see the "making of" feature and understand the great care Miyazaki took to get just the right performance out of his actors, it's hard to see this as anything but vandalism of the crassest kind. If the director didn't do this deliberately, it's an incompetence this film did not merit. The dub is plagued with needless chatter. It takes advantage of moments where the characters' mouths aren't visible to insert dialogue that adds nothing to the scene but rather destroys the mood it was setting. It was annoying enough when Disney did this to Miyazaki's earlier "Kiki's Delivery Service"; here it's positively jarring even though there's less of it. The added final line of the movie comes close to ruining it, if that was possible, as it reaches for an entirely inappropriate cheap laugh. Which brings me to the dub's translation. I know that compromises occasionally have to be made to get the lip movements more or less in synch, but that's no excuse here. Some of the English dialogue is so at variance with the original that a character's intent seems to be completely inverted at times, and entire scenes take on different meanings. However, not all the acting is bad and not all the translation is so discreditable. David Ogden Stiers and Suzanne Pleshette turn in superb performances as the boiler man Kamaji and the twin witches respectively, even if inappropriate words were occasionally given to them to say. I also know that some have objected to the translation of "hanko" as "seal" -- this is the mcguffin driving the second half of the film -- but I'd be hard-pressed to think of something more appropriate. (However, simply calling it "magical" is inadequate to explain its importance. Some cultural background is helpful here.) The subtitle translation is far superior, although even someone like myself who knows no Japanese beyond a handful of words can spot some changes. For example, at one point the subtitles have Haku addressing Kamaji by name when he can clearly be heard to be saying "ojisan", "grandfather". This speaks volumes about their relationship, but it was just thrown away for some reason. (The same happens with Chihiro, but with her it matters less because she and Kamaji have enough screen time together that their relationship is understood.) However, being able to hear the fine work of the original actors more than makes up for any small deficiency along these lines. Why on earth does Disney think it necessary to insert a tedious "introduction" by John Lasseter at the beginning of every Miyazaki film it distributes? Yes, the "Skip" button works here, but why should we have to do this every time we play every disc? It's an annoyance that doesn't have to be there. This movie cannot be truly appreciated in the Disney version, which might go some way toward explaining its poor performance in the American theatrical relsease. It deserves to be seen as Miyazaki made it. Please treat yourself to a viewing of it. "Not his best. Good but overrated."I have been Miyazaki's fan since when Nausicaa came out in 1986. I have enjoyed many of his works but I must say that Spirited Away is ranked low among "Cat returns" and "Heisei Tanuki Ponpoko". It has almost become a "politically correct" thing to praise whenever Miyazaki releases his movies. When Princess Mononoke came out in Japan, he has vaguely announced that that was going to be his last big movie with Studio Gibli. There are many long stance fans for Miyazaki who went to watch the movie in theatre to witness his masterpiece. "Princess Mononoke" although is ranked third in his works, deserved all the praises that it went to. I however feel that this work does not deserve full praises that has been echoed internationally. The story is not spectacular. It is good but it is just okay. The character setting is rather poor and storyline is rather brand compared to his standards. Some may consider this movie culturally significant but if you dig into Japanese animation you will soon recognize that this is not the case. Story told in the movie is original as far as script goes but not original as it follows some of the classical folktales in Japan. If this movie came out under other's author's name, I gurantee this movie would not have been famous. I would have given 3 stars as if this had been the case but gives 2 as warning to those who expects true Japanese animation masterpiece. "a masterpiece"Hayao Miyazaki is a geneous in anime. This movie has beautiful graphics and a really well thought out storyline. Its about a little girl Chihiro and her parents move to a new town and get lost when trying to find thier new house. They think they see thier house on a hill top so they drive up there. They enter an abandoned town where food is cooking by itself, so the girls hungry parents run to go eat it. The food turns the girls parents to pigs, and the girl finds out she is not in a human town. Humans arent really excepted in this town, but Chihiro needs to get hers parents back. She ends up having to work in a bath house, while try to find a way to get her parents back to human before its too late. Ive had this movie since it first came out in April 2003 and probably watched it 25 times. I just love all of miyazaki's work epecially totoro. ive had totoro for a little over ten years and totoro never gets old either. I think this movie is enjoyable for everyone. The second disc has the making of this movie,which is really really interesting. I didnt really like special feature showing how the american dub was done though. This is an unbelievable movie, its hard to only watch once, i prefer buying it. |
