Another Miyazaki classic, it's less like watching a movie and more like being submerged in one.

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Product Description

From one of the most celebrated filmmakers in the history of animated cinema comes the most acclaimed film of 2002. Hayao Miyazaki's latest triumph, filled with astonishing animation and epic adventure, is a dazzling masterpiece for the ages. It's a "wonderfully welcoming work of art that's as funny and entertaining as it is brilliant, beautiful, and deep" (Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal). SPIRITED AWAY is a wondrous fantasy about a young girl, Chihiro, trapped in a strange new world of spirits. When her parents undergo a mysterious transformation, she must call upon the courage she never knew she had to free herself and return her family to the outside world. An unforgettable story brimming with creativity, SPIRITED AWAY will take you on a journey beyond your imagination. "To enter the world of Hayao Miyazaki is to experience a kind of lighthearted enchantment that is unique to the world of animation" (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times). It's a fantastic tale the whole family will want to experience over and over again.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #796 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-04-15
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Animated, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French, Japanese
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 125 minutes

Amazon.com
The highest grossing film in Japanese box-office history (more than $234 million), Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away (Sen To Chihiro Kamikakushi) is a dazzling film that reasserts the power of drawn animation to create fantasy worlds. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and Lewis Carroll's Alice, Chihiro (voice by Daveigh Chase--Lilo in Disney's Lilo & Stitch) plunges into an alternate reality. On the way to their new home, the petulant adolescent and her parents find what they think is a deserted amusement park. Her parents stuff themselves until they turn into pigs, and Chihiro discovers they're trapped in a resort for traditional Japanese gods and spirits. An oddly familiar boy named Haku (Jason Marsden) instructs Chihiro to request a job from Yubaba (Suzanne Pleshette), the greedy witch who rules the spa. As she works, Chihiro's untapped qualities keep her from being corrupted by the greed that pervades Yubaba's mini-empire. In a series of fantastic adventures, she purges a river god suffering from human pollution, rescues the mysterious No-Face, and befriends Yubaba's kindly twin, Zeniba (Pleshette again). The resolve, bravery, and love Chihiro discovers within herself enable her to aid Haku and save her parents. The result is a moving and magical journey, told with consummate skill by one of the masters of contemporary animation. MPAA Rated: PG ("Some scary moments") --Charles Solomon

DVD features
The most interesting extra feature on the two-disc set is the Nippon Television Special on the making of Spirited Away, not because it's significantly different from American making-of programs, but because the camera crew was allowed to film Miyazaki at work. It's fascinating to watch the visionary director explaining how individual movements should be animated, and even performing the little dance the frog-master does to welcome the No-Face to Yubaba's bath house. (Old animators describe Walt Disney giving similar performances, but no comparable footage exists.) It's also striking to see how intimate Studio Ghibli is, unencumbered by the tiers of management that burden American studios. The scene comparisons enable the viewer to study the storyboards for the film, which Miyazaki draws himself. These simple yet wonderfully vivid images capture the essence of a mood, a movement, an expression. "Behind the Microphone" offers a fairly standard behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the excellent English version of Spirited Away. --Charles Solomon

From The New Yorker
In his native Japan, the animator-director Hayao Miyazaki is considered a national treasure, and this movie, which he came out of retirement to complete, recently surpassed "Titanic" as that country's highest-grossing picture. It's an amazing work, filled with a visual intelligence that's meticulously composed and obscenely clever. Miyazaki's playful aesthetic is like a Japanese word that can't be adequately translated, best approximated as part Spielberg, part Dr. Seuss. So-called mature American audiences may be put off at first by a film that is essentially a cartoon about a fearful ten-year-old girl. But as the hero, Chihiro, sees her parents turned into swine and flees into an alternate world filled with the creatures of Japanese mythology and of Miyazaki's own invention, any distracting sense of childishness falls away. Left to savor are virtuoso touches, like a flock of birds that becomes useless paper, a train that glides along the surface of a lake, and one of the great villains of all time, Yubaba, who looks like a bobble-headed grandmother on speed. -Michael Agger
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

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Customer Reviews

Miyazaki love.
Hayao Miyazaki, obviously, is an amazing director. Joe Hisaishi's music just makes this movie jump to an astronomical level. I usually get sick of movies very quickly, but no matter how many times I watch this movie..it just takes my breath away. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Amazing!
Spirited Away is an amazing movie. It's very touching, and a great family movie. If you like Hayao Miyazaki, you should buy this movie. It's very touching...

FOR PARENTS: Beautiful but not for small children
This movie is beautiful and I agree with many of the reviews. But those that say it is for young children probably do not have children. I watched this with my five year old daughter (the first hour) and she got very quiet and left the room. She ended up being very scared and upset in a very real way. She even had nightmares. It was my mistake. I should have watched it first to see. I am not saying that ALL children would be. But I would definitly say it is for more sophisticated children/older. And yes-classic disney was a bit more scary. But the scene where snow white gets lost in the forest is not quite the same as the feeling and imagery of the this film which does not let up as does Snow White when she says "I was being silly to be scared" then starts singing. Just watch it first and see what you think before showing small children.