Month: December 2020

Movie Review:”Spirited Away”

On By KavyaIn books, films, moviesLeave a comment

This review is about an awesome and famous anime, Spirited Away. Spirited Away is an award-winning movie, written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. The pieces of music are composed by Joe Hisaishi, and the song by Yumi Kimura. This is an amazing movie, and let me tell you more about it!

10-year-old Chihiro Ogino and her family are moving house, to a small village, in the middle of nowhere. Chihiro, the spoilt only daughter of the family, is extremely unhappy about moving away from the neighbourhood and friends she has always known. The family gets lost on the way to their house, and discover a mysterious, creepy tunnel, with a weird stone statue in front of it. Her parents decide to explore it. Chihiro, though she has an extreme foreboding about it, decides to follow them.

They find a small village full of abandoned buildings, which, strangely enough are all restaurants. They find some delicious food in one of the seemingly abandoned restaurants. Her parents, who decide that it would do for their lunch, try getting Chihiro to eat it too. She refuses to. Her sense of foreboding is mounting……

She decides to explore it. She finds a bridge, leading to a strange old building. Suddenly, a boy of around her age comes out of the building, and urgently tells her to get out of the village, fast, before nightfall. It was already dusk. Alarmed, Chihiro runs to get her parents, when suddenly the buildings around her come to life. It was night-time…..

The restaurants are full of …….. spirits, opening the restaurants for the night. She runs to her parents, only to find, that they ate so much, that they turned into…….. pigs. She screams and runs to the edge of the village, where that boy finds her and gives her instructions, to get a job here. It is the only way she can stay, and rescue her parents. The boy says, his name is Haku. On his instructions, she meets a kind old boiler man, named Kamaji, who helps her to get a job. The strange old building is a bath house for the spirits. The spirit world, is ruled over by a miserly witch called Yubaba. Chihiro manages to get a job from her, with great difficulty. After she got her job, an old river spirit comes there, and a demon called No-face starts wreaking havoc on the bath house. Yubaba has taken control of her name, and she is bound to her forever, unless she manages to remember her own name. Meanwhile, Haku has a secret to hide……..

Haku suddenly got injured, due to doing something he shouldn’t have, and now his life is also in danger…..

The lives of her loved ones are, quite literally, placed in her hands. Can she find the courage, inside herself, to save them all??

Spirited Away is a beautiful movie, with a rich variety of characters, and some hilarious parts. The animation was good, and the storyline was just the right mixture of adventure, joy, creepiness and sadness. I, for one, loved this movie. My favourite character is Kamaji, on account of him being so kind. Who is yours??  

The story is really sweet, and if you like something mystical and adventurous, then this is perfect for you. It is perfect to cheer you up on a rainy day. It has extremely good music too. It made Chihiro selfless and she opened her eyes to the beauty of the world. It made her realize how lucky she was.

This movie is perfect for 8+ year olds.                                                                                                                

 I give this movie five stars!

Movie Review: Howl’s Moving Castle

On By KavyaIn books, films, hollywood, movies1 Comment

This is a review about an amazing and remarkable anime, Howl’s Moving Castle. Howl’s Moving Castle was directed by a renowned anime director, Hayao Miyazaki and it was released in 2004. There are some beautiful pieces of music in the movie, composed by Joe Hisaishi . It is essentially based on the book Howl’s Moving Castle, but there is some variation from the original story line.

Go on, read the review! (Don’t worry, there are not major spoilers in it!)

After reading this review, I hope you decide to watch it is definitely worth it!

In the magical land of Ingary, war has wreaked havoc across the kingdom. The war is being fought against the neighbouring kingdom.

There is a small town in this kingdom, which is more or less untouched by the war (until now), and the name of this town is Market Chipping. At the edge of the town, A big moving castle set up base, and that moving castle belonged to a wizard, namely Howl. Howl is supposedly an evil magician who eats/steals the heart of young girls……..

In this town, in a small hat shop, there lives a girl named Sophie.

Sophie has spent her whole life in the hat shop, making hats. Her father left her the hat shop, and she is bored and tired of drudging away her entire life, at the hats.

However, the adventures she is about to embark on make up for a lifetime of boredom…….

On the way to meet her sister, she is rescued from black blobby monsters and a couple of thugs by a kind and handsome wizard. The witch of the waste (an evil witch), who is after them, casts a spell on Sophie to turn her into ………. an old woman. (Cue: Gasp!!!)

She sets off to reverse the spell on her, and she rescues a magic scarecrow, who helps her find a place to stay (one good turn deserves another!). The lodgings are…. Howl’s Moving Castle!!

She is nervous, is Howl evil? Will she be given a place to stay or not?

Sophie finds the last thing she expects, in the last place she expects: a home and a family. But the war threatens to tear that apart….                                                                                                                                                                                  She is tied up in a whirlwind of secrets, danger, and surprises,

Can she save the people she loves??……..

I loved this movie because it was really interesting, and the situations were really well shown and created.  I love its book, so I decided to watch the movie and see, is it as good as the book? I am delighted to say, that the answer is yes. Everything is so colourful, and when you see it, you feel as if it is happening right next to you. The plot is intricate and beautiful, and some of the situations are really funny. Even though it is slightly different from the book, the protagonists are more or less the same. My favourite character was Markl, who is yours?

This movie was one of a kind, and I loved the storyline, because it was beautiful, meaningful, fantastical, adventurous, and loving. I think that you should really try this movie, you will not regret it. I recommend this movie for ages 10+.

I give this movie  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐    !!!!