Spirited Away (2002) (2-Disc Set)

Miyazaki - True to Form as the Japanese

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Apr 19, 2003 | 7 out of 8 found this Spirited Away (2002) review helpful

Hayao Miyazaki's works as a Japanese animator who doesn't delve into sexual and violent imagery, like most of the Anime movies. He concentrates with a low-key and personal touch, dealing with courageous young characters beating the odds. In "Spiri...ted Away," his wonderful, beautifully animated masterpiece, we meet 10-year-old Chihiro, who wanders with her parents into a strange neighborhood, little knowing it is a spiritual world once her hungry parents are turned into pigs by an elderly cold-hearted sorceress named Yubaba. To rescue her parents, Chihiro, with the aid of a young boy, a free-thinking female bathhouse worker, and the other human characters working in Yubaba's spiritual bathhouse, must help out in the bathhouse and courageously defies the odds of Yubaba's black magic and short temperament, and all the evil spirits, including a man with six legs and a ghost named "No-Face." This movie was so successful in Japan that the Walt Disney studios acquired the rights to merge with Miyazaki's Ghibli Studios for this picture, allowing American voice talent to dub for the characters. Daveigh Chase is naturally cute for the voice of Chihiro. Suzanne Pleshette is a sardonic hoot for the voice of Yubaba, but adds a gentle touch for Yubaba's more pleasant twin sister who Chihiro gets to call "Granny." Other voice talents include Lauren Holly as Chihiro's mother, David Odgen Stiers, a regular voiceover in many recent Disney animated movies, as the half-man, half-insect, James Marsden as Chihiro's supportive friend who gets to turn into a dragon in one magical sequence and gives Chihiro the ride of her life, and John Ratzenberger as a singing and dancing Japanese clown. There is also a large baby who eats compulsively for comic support. "Spirited Away" is a masterpiece with artful imagery and will touch the hearts and minds of all viewers. Small children may be frightened of scenes of faceless ghosts and a spirit that turns into a monster that vomits (the only needless scene in this movie), but it is highly recommended for older children and adults. Read more Less