Howl's Moving Castle contains strong anti-war themes, influenced by Miyazaki's distaste for the 2003 Iraq War. When he received an Oscar for Spirited Away, he said that he "had a great deal of rage about [the war]. So [he] felt some hesitation about the award." Miyazaki identifies as a pacifist. On the eve of the Iraq War, Miyazaki decided to make a film that he felt would be poorly received in the United States. Despite the film's success in that country, literary scholar Dani Cavallaro stated that Miyazaki was able to "create a film which ought, in principle, to have caused a certain unease among American audiences." In the movie, Madame Suliman appears to have only sadistic motivations for creating conflict, and despite being omniscient, is unable to recognize the idiocy of the war until the very end of the story. This reflects Miyazaki's desire to show real-world conflicts as also being somewhat arbitrary and fueled by the desires of capricious people. Cavallaro stated that the depiction of the war carried "an unmistakable bitter taste." She also writes that the military presence and warfare was highlighted in the film. From the early concept sketches military elements were emphasized, and when the film shows the bustling commercial district the soldiers in uniforms stand out intentionally.
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Howl’s Moving Castle
(2004)Howl no Ugoku Shiro 4
Country | |
Runtime | 1 hr 59 min |
Budget | $24 000 000 |
Premiere: World | $237 536 126 November 20, 2004 |
USA | $5 576 743 |
Other countries | $231 959 383 |
Box Office – Budget | $213 536 126 |
Premiere: USA | $5 576 743 June 6, 2005 |
first day | $368 180 |
first weekend | $427 987 |
theaters | 748 |
rollout | 269 days |
Digital: World | December 17, 2019 |
Production Companies | |
Also Known As | ハウルの動く城 (Japan) Howl's Moving Castle (United Kingdom) |
Description
When an unconfident young woman is cursed with an old body by a spiteful witch, her only chance of breaking the spell lies with a self-indulgent yet insecure young wizard and his companions in his legged, walking castle.Сast and Crew
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Critique: 36
An eye-popping, mind-bending phantasmagoria from one of the greatest living film artists.
Howl’s Moving Castle is Japanese and anime, and therefore automatically more artistic than its US counterparts. The right cultural cachet giv...
Miyazaki is like a soulful cartographer of the soul, mapping our inner landscape, leaving us bedazzled.
Youngsters and Miyazaki fans will coo at the world’s depth and rich surreality, but opaque plotting, and a tendency to mope with Sophie...
Palaces and shimmering lakes, warplanes and fire sprites all come to life at the breath of Miyazaki’s graphic genius.
Miyazaki’s animated adaptation of Jones' book is a charming and thoroughly absorbing treat.
At its best, Howl’s Moving Castle offers a rich fantasy of adolescent escape, of romance in the old and epic sense.
The risibly cloying closing scenes are likely to nix any remaining goodwill, blotting out such delicate early touches as a stroll through the air f...
The latest animated tour de force from the Japanese director Hayao Miyazak is a fitting introduction to one of modern cinema’s great enc...
Howl’s Moving Castle has the logic of a dream: behind every door lie multiple realities, one more astonishing than the next.
There’s also a pervasive, intoxicating sense of enchantment. It’s magic.
As much of a hand-drawn treat as Spirited Away, chock-full of numinous sunsets, fabulous organic machinery and gratuitously delightful touches.
Miyazaki’s gift for wonder, an ease with fantasy that makes enchantment second nature, is so great it obliterates differences in language.
A parade of weird characters comes onstage to do their turns, but the underlying plot grows murky and, amazingly for a Miyazaki film, we grow...
If you’ve yet to take the anime plunge, this is a fine place to start; if you’re an old hand, you will not be disappointed.
While there’s no denying Miyazaki’s visual flair and tip-top draughtsmanship, I found myself less than enchanted by the mile-high convo...
There’s a word for the kind of comic, dramatic, romantic, transporting visions Miyazaki achieves in Howl’s: bliss.
What you get, above all, is some enchanting flashes of classic Miyazaki and the nagging sense that something essential is missing.
Miyazaki isn’t interested in the jolts of surrealism so much as imbuing his audience with the idea that reality can change at any moment, and...
Howl’s Moving Castle is a Hayao Miyazaki film through and through, but the film’s meta momentum is bound to disappoint fans of the...
Miyazaki may not have achieved the level of Spirited Away, but he’s still ahead of the curve.
This movie often soars, blending a childlike sense of wonder with sophisticated emotions and motives.
Miyazaki, now in his mid-60s, has a refreshing and persuasive way of relating youth to old age and callowness to wisdom. Rather than presentin...
[Miyazaki] may have made better films than Howl’s Moving Castle, but it still exhibits his amazing imagination and astonishing detail.
Another stunningly beautiful and beguiling work of animation from Japan’s Hayao Miyazaki.
It’s not Miyazaki’s best work, but it is leagues beyond any traditional 2-D animation out of 3-D-mad Hollywood lately, and more beguili...
Meanders so listlessly that its details become less and less charming. Miyazaki’s storytelling style resembles that of a breathless youn...
A floatingly delightful fairytale with its heart set on repealing the law of gravity.
With its bold screen-filling imagery, this is definitely a movie to be relished on the big screen.
The visuals are stunning, bursting with vivid colors and surreal inventiveness.
Howl’s Moving Castle moves – in short, choppy, jumpy jerks that will never make anyone forget how fluid the truly great hand-drawn carto...
A strange delight awash in visual splendor, understated humor and clever body-and-soul transmogrifications among its bonny band of weirdos.
The whole thing has the heavenly whimsy of Ludwig Bemelmans' illustrations from the classic French children’s books.
A wise and wonderful parable of the passing moments of life, and dealing with both the advantages and burdens that make us individuals.
Miyazaki has an appeal that crosses generations. Adult audiences are drawn to the depth and variety of his vision, but so are kids, and for exactly...
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Watched
Although I’m not a fan of anime as such, I was pleased with the detail in the atmosphere, castle, and characters. The second half, devoted more to the romantic line, did not touch and cast a slight shadow of boredom. But this is not a complaint against the director, but purely against my perception Translated to English

Watched
Although I am not a fan of fantasy, the film is very heartfelt and sometimes sweet. All the characters are very charming, although some of the minor characters seem quite inconsistent and some of the central characters seem underdeveloped. But visually stunning. Translated to English

Watched
The whole cartoon is like a huge wart on a grandma’s trolleybus – it’s creepy, but you can’t take your eyes off it. Translated to English

Watched
Having watched Howl’s Moving Castle 2 months ago, I remember that it left a double impression. But watching it again in wartime, I felt and was imbued with history. The footage of the war cuts the heart, and through the screen there is a smell of gunpowder fire and death. Translated to English