Howl's Moving Castle

I've finally seen Miyazaki's new movie. I've been looking for it since I came to Korea, but I've only found it in a few shops and it was expensive. I was thinking of going to a DVD bang (room) in Myeongdong to see it, but then last night our DVD store had it. I picked it up immediately, we brought it home and then went out to buy speakers for our laptop. Watching movies on this thing is terrible without speakers, and I expected beautiful music because the music on his last picture was beautiful.

I had high hopes, which is often a bad sign, because of course, it's easier to be disappointed when one has high hopes. But friends, I was not disappointed. This movie was excellent! Miyazaki's done it again! The animation was superb; the characters were loveable, quirky, cute and funny; and the whole world was insanely imaginative, from the beginning when Howl and Sophie trip across the towns rooftops, to near the end when Howl creates a new house and furniture is falling from the ceiling and rooms are popping into existence. The movie is also exciting; things happen so quickly that one is never bored.

As always in Miyazaki movies, the heroine is stunning while at the same time unremarkable. Sophie has never been beautiful, and in her words, "all I'm good at is cleaning." Chesterton said that in fairy tales extraordinary things happen to an ordinary boy and that in modern stories ordinary things happen to abnormal people. Howl is definitely a fairy tale, and in this way is similar to The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia . Sophie is a young girl who works at a hatter's and isn't happy there. Because she's not the type of girl to complain, this comes out it a conversation with her mother. One night after accidentally meeting Howl, the Witch of the Wastes comes to the shop after it's closed. Sophie tells her to leave, and she does, but not before casting a spell on Sophie. This spell turns Sophie into an old lady, and she then runs away from her home at the hatter's shop. While running away, she finds Howl's castle, gets in and designates herself the new cleaning lady because it's so dirty. Thus it begins, and through the rest Howl tries to stop a war and Sophie tries to break her spell and the group of people inside of the castle grows and they turn into a extempore family. Because this post is getting too long, I merely say: It's terrific. Watch it.