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Review: Spirited Away
Let's get a few things out of the way first. There's both a subtitled version with Japanese audio, and an English-dubbed version. The dubbed version appears to be showing in more theaters, with the subtitled version only showing in a very few locations. I saw the subtitled one, not because I'm a purist (I usually prefer the dubbed versions so my eyes can concentrate on the animation rather than having to read), but just because it was showing at a convenient time, so I can't comment on the quality of the English dub.
The film might be too intense for very young viewers in a few places. One theater nearby has a note saying they won't allow kids under six to attend - I have no idea how they came up with that age, but there's definitely a few scenes that could be frightening to very young kids. You might want to watch it ahead of time, or at least be prepared to hold them tight.
And on to the film. It is excellent. Several of Miyazaki's other films have had themes involving the spirits of nature, and this is a continuation of those. Other tales it made me think of: Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, Alice in Wonderland, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Narnia in general), The Neverending Story, and the tale of Circe the Enchantress in the Odyssey. You remember Circe, don't you, the sorceress who turned Odysseus' men into pigs? No doubt if I knew more about Japanese legends I would see lots of places that Miyazaki drew from there as well.
The basic plot is simple: Chihiro's parents stumble into a place they shouldn't be, and get turned into pigs, and she must save them. I'm not going to elaborate on it because I really enjoyed discovering what was going on throughout the movie and I'd rather not spoil it for you. There's a happy ending - this isn't a Grave of the Fireflies - so you don't have to worry about your kids being permanently traumatized.
Everything about the film says that a great deal of effort was put into it. Tiny details are included in every frame of the animation. There's a pretty extensive use of CGI for rendering background man-made objects (nature backgrounds are mostly drawn), but it fits in very well with the hand-drawn art and adds rather than detracts from the movie. I don't know how I can really convey the difference between this and a typical Disney animated film... Maybe this: think about how, in the Lion King or a similar movie, there are often large swatches of a similar color taking up large parts of the screen. Oh, here's a lion, and it has three square feet of an absolutely pure tan color (which, incidentally, takes very little effort to draw). An equivalent lion in a Miyazaki film would have a hundred shades of color and streaks and details and highlights and lowlights, and it would have that in every frame that it appeared in. The colors are brighter, the whites are whiter. (Note that apparently the subtitled version I saw is being shown in a digital projection, while the dubbed version is traditional film.)
You don't have to like anime to like this movie - it will be fun for nearly all ages. It's not quite as endearing as Totoro, not quite as mystical as Mononoke (well, maybe it is, at that). But it's definitely as good as either of these. Well worth seeing in the theaters.
There are other formats of trailers and more sizes to choose from at the main movie site. Real and WMA are provided in addition to quicktime. Be warned, the page is flash intensive.
Saw it at the Paramount in downtown Toronto yesterday at a Matinee. The dubbing was *superb* Great work, Disney! Thanks for bringing this to N.America I'll wait and buy the sub-titled version with Disney-dub option :)
geeks are cats who dig a certain kind of cool
Here's Roger Ebert's review of the dubbed version, as well an essay he wrote that includes an interview with Miyazaki and gives some good background on the dubbed version produced by John Lasseter ("Toy Story") and Disney.
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Nausicaa is available with "official" English subtitles... There are two sets called "Archives of Studio Ghibli", one a 4-DVD set and the other a 6-DVD set, that contain 8 or 12 Ghibli movies in Japanese audio with English and Chinese subtitles (no English audio). I don't think these were intended for the U.S. market, but they are readily available here. So you can get a massive Ghibli fix with all the subtitles you can read, and since (as you point out) many of these movies have never been released for the U.S., this is probably the best way to see them.
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Here is a list of theatres in the US that are/will be screening "Spirited Away".
Except that these are illegitimate pirate DVDs (the "English and Chinese subtitles" bit should be a dead giveaway). According to fans who've purchased them, they are actually of rather low quality, sometimes leaving out entire scenes altogether. The DVD of Nausicaa has not yet been released in Japan; since it's Miyazaki's most popular movie, Disney seems to be saving it for last.
Ghibli/Disney has never yet put out a multi-movie DVD set. If you must pirate the movie, download the fansub from KaZaa so that you're not enriching the coffers of people who profit at Ghibli's expense.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
you have GOT to be kidding me. Spirited away made the front page of USA Today for fucks sake!
Check out this thread on animeondvd.com for more info.
i dont think disney has a merchandising lisence for spirited away. Lisencing is a very complicated issue, and often the lisencer is very stingy about what they allow to be produced. I, however, have seen tv commercials, radio spots, and ads in newspapers.
no
Manga International is an infamous HK anime bootlegger, so I woudn't recommend getting it. The original japanese R2 DVD includes English and French subtitles and French dub. You can order it at http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/ You can find the list of all legitimate releases at http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/video/sen/
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I'm not surprised that the /. crowd likes it. More significantly is the fact that the mainstream press are all over it:
Rotten Tomatoes shows not a single bad review, that's pretty impressive.
The film rights have been bought by Pathe in the UK. They haven't set a release date which means not likely before the second half of 2003. For DVD owners there may be another way, if you can play NTSC region2 dvds, you can get it with English subtitles from Japan.
Me, I prefered Sen to Mononoke, Sen doesn't have the overtones of that movie which I thought rather to heavy. The allegory in Sen is handled more lightly.
Just my 2 yen.