I have to begin this review by saying I am a huge Miyazaki fan, and have every Studio Gibli film on DVD, and was so excited when I first heard this film was going into production that I went out and bought Diana Wynne Jones’s Children’s novel that this was based on (and it’s almost unrelated sequel). I have literally been on the edge of my seat for years waiting for this, and finally got to see it, though unfortunately I couldn’t find a subtitled print and had to see the dubbed version, which while having a great cast, just wasn’t how I wanted to see it, though it really did not take away from the magic of this film at all. And while this may not be Miyazaki’s best work (how can anything ever touch Nausicaa except his own Manga of the same name), it is certainly one of his best works, and a must see for all fans of anime, and in fact movies in general. Miyazaki has the amazing ability to bring out the wonder in his audience, and even with the small audience I saw this film, everyone was laughing and gasping and so into this that it was a really wonderful experience.

Now the film is greatly changed from the novel, adding in elements of war that were really not there, though touched on in the sequel, and completely changing the ending, but I think even Dianna Wynne Young would be pleased with this, which becomes part her work and part a Miyazaki film.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

Sophia (Baisho Chieko, and Emily Mortimer as the young and Jean Simmons as the old Sophie for the dub) is a young and beautiful, but very plain girl working at her families hat shop. She feels she is destined to be forever working in her dead father’s hat shop making hats, but the country is at war, since the prince of the neighboring country (Oizumi Yo, Crispin Freeman) is missing so war has been declared, and when she harrassed by some soldiers she is saved by a very dashing young Wizard named Howl (Kimura Takuya and in English by Christian Bale) who saves her, but he is being chased by the minions of the Witch of the Waste (Miwa Akihiro and Laren Bacall in English), and she focuses on Sophia and finds her and casts a spell making her very old, and unable to tell anyone about it. Sophia leaves home and slowly heads out into the waste, where she inadvertently saves a cursed Turnip headed scarecrow, that once it helps her gives her a cane and leads her to Howl’s Moving Castle which moves around the wasteland. She moves in, taking over from Howl’s young servant Markl (Kamiki Ryunosuke and in English by Josh Hutcherson), and begins to clean the place, making friends with the fire demon Calcifer (Gashuin Tatsuya and in English by the very funny Billy Crystal) who has a pact with Howl, and keeps the house moving. She likes to torment Calcifer, who makes a deal with her that he will remove her curse if she figures out how to remove his and Howl’s. Howl returns and finds he has a new maid, and takes her in as part of the family. We learn the house has a door with 4 portals, you get to each by turning a nob, and we learn Howl has 2 other identities as Wizards, and a black entrance, that he is hiding from the King’s (Otsuka Akio and in English by Mark Silverman) wizard Madam Suliman (Kato Haruko and in English Mark Silverman). He has been called to the Castle to serve the King at War, but he flies out as a bird man and watches the war unfolding, hating both sides. Howl sends Sophia to the Castle to see the King and Madam Suliman, where she plays as Howl’s mom, and goes their with the Witch of the Waste, who lady Suliman removes all her powers and ages her to actual age. Howl shows up looking like the King, but the real King shows, up and he must escape with Sophie, who also takes the aged Witch of the West and Madam Suliman’s dog, while Howl runs interference. Sophie makes it the castle, though crashes a big whole in it. Suliman realized that Sophie loves Howl, and knows how to get to him that way. Howl is being chased so he redoes the house, so it has 2 different doors, one in Sophie’s old house at the hat store, and the other to Howl’s childhood home. And Sophie dreams of the wounded Howl returning and wants to help him when he returns from fighting the war, but Calicifer is wounded, and can’t protect the house, so Howl must do it, and Sophie remove’s Calcifer from the castle, destroying it, and then has Calicifer recreate it smaller so they can tell Howl that they are safe, but The Witch of the West realizes Calcifer has Howl’s heart, which is what she always wanted, and she grabs it and Sophie throws water on them hurting both of them and the castle falls apart, and Sophie falls. Sophie falls and goes into the black entry on the door, finding Howl’s childhood home, and the study that he gave to her in the fields of flowers, and she sees Howl as a child with a star landing on him and he takes it in and makes Calcifer out of it. She tells the young Howl to find her, and when she returns the wounded Howl as a beast is waiting and he takes her to Calcifer where she gets the Witch of the Waste to return Howl’s heart, which he gives back to Howl and releases Calcifer. Then Sophia kisses the Turnip head, who turns into a prince by having his true love kiss her. He will return to his land to stop the war, but vows to return to Sophie even though she loves Howl, and she is young again, though with white hair, along with her love, who she has returned her heart too.

This is a wonderful and lyric movie, that is once again another Gibli Masterpiece. Everyone should go see this film if they can, and I can’t wait to see the Japanese dub of the film, though the english voice dub was actually very good and well acted.

I have never seen a Gibli film I didn’t like and this film is no exception.