Right off the bat I'd have to say of the three Miyazaki films I've seen thus far, this one is hands down the best! Plus, Turniphead is 10 times better than the kodama of Princess Mononoke (although still super cute).
Howl is a very angsty (teenage?) wizard trained by the Queen's sorceress. He happens upon Sophie while she's walking home from work and is being accosted by some quite ungentlemanly guards. Howl does the age-old "hi dear, I'm glad I caught you! Let me walk you home" trick and accompanies her home. He, however, is also being followed by some creepy black globby shape changers. Sophie finally gets home and eventually has to return to work where the black globby shapeshifter things show up again, but this time with their master. She ends up putting a spell on Sophie which makes her incredibly old. Sophie then goes out to try and break the spell, and then happens upon Howl's Castle and decides to let herself in and acts as housekeeper. A number of spells, inanimate objects becoming animate, a war, and a destroyed castle later rounds out the movie in pure Miyazaki style.
As I said with the other Studio Ghibli's movies, I am a huge fan due to my fantasty fan-dom anyway. Another for the must-see list!
The book is better ;P
ReplyDeleteso i've heard. i will have to put that on my ever-growing list of back-logged books haha
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