The Essentials
Name: Howl’s Moving Castle, Howl no Ugoku Shiro
Genre: Fantasy
Episodes: N/A
Released: November 20, 2004
Based On: Howl’s Moving Castle book by Diana Wynne Jones
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Produced By: Studio Ghibli
US Distribution By: Walt Disney
Major Japanese Cast
Howl: Takuya Kimura
Sophie Hatter: Chieko Baisho
Calcifer: Tatsuya Gashuin
Witch of the Waste: Akihiro Miwa
Madam Suliman: Haruko Kato
Markl: Ryunosuke Kamiki
Major English Cast
Howl: Christian Bale
Sophie Hatter (young): Emily Mortimer
Sophie Hatter (old): Jean Simmons
Calcifer: Billy Crystal
Witch of the Waste: Lauren Bacall
Madam Suliman: Blythe Danner
Markl: Josh Hutcherson
Scores
Animation: 9/10 (x 4 = 36 pts)
Story: 8/10 (x 4 = 32 pts)
Music: 8/10 (x 4 = 32 pts)
Coherency/Story Arc: N/A
English Dubs: 10/10 (x 1 = 10 pts)
Gut Score: 8/10 (x 5 = 40 pts)
Total: 150/180 (83.3%)
Review
Howl’s Moving Castle is about a young lady, Sophie Hatter and the wizard Howl. One day in her town, Sophie accidentally meets up with Howl, a mysterious Wizard, who helps her escape from some soldiers who were hitting on her. The Witch of the Waste, who apparently takes revenge on any girl who makes contact with Howl, visits Sophie at her hat shop and turns her into an old lady. On top of that, part of the spell is that she can’t tell anyone about it.
Not wanting people to know what happened to her, Sophie leaves to go live life on her own. Outside the town, she encounters a jumping scarecrow, who leads her to Howl’s moving castle for shelter. There, she meets Culcipher, a fire demon who shares a curse with Howl.
The story goes on from there, with Sophie becoming Howl’s cleaning lady and learning more about Howl and Culcipher and Howl’s resistence to fight in a war between two neighboring nations because he hates killing.
Howl’s Moving Castle maybe isn’t the best of Miyazaki’s movies, but it is still pretty good. Probably the biggest negative about the movie was I thought the ending was rather sudden. The movie was going along well and then all of a sudden it was like “welp! Everything is magically resolved! Bye!”
I didn’t even realize that there even was a missing prince my first time through, which was the cause of the war between the two nations, by the way, and when watching it a second time with english dubs, the only time I heard a remark on it was a soft convsersation by background characters, yet the release of a magic spell on the prince is what ends the war at the end of the movie. It just seemed to me that the cause of the war which is such a big part of the movie would be more prominent.
On top a curse being cured that I didn’t even know existed, I’m not totally sure the curses that Sophie was under was, itself, totally cured, since Sophie still has grey hair at the end of the movie, though her face is no longer old.
Also, I wasn’t exactly sure what the purpose of the Witch of the Waste was in the movie. She basically served two purposes: She cursed Sophie, and she ended up causing Sophie to find out something about Howl’s past. Other than that, she’s just kind of there.
Other than that (and I know thats kind of weird after spending three paragraphs ripping into the movie), it was a pretty good movie. It just needed to wrap up better.
The animation, as usual for a Miyazaki film, was excellent. The music was pretty good as well, and the English dub is one of the best I’ve heard, though that too is typical of a Disney dubbing of a Miyazaki movie.
Perhaps even more so than most of Miyazaki’s other works, this movie is one that everyone, even non-anime fans, could enjoy.
First Watched: March, 2006
Do I Own: No
Do I Recommend: Yes
