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Emily Mortimer, Chieko Baisho, Takuya Kimura, Christian Bale, Lauren Bacall ... see more see more... , Akihiro Miwa , Billy Crystal , Tatsuya Gasyuin , Ryunosuke Kamiki , Josh Hutcherson , Jean Simmons , Mitsunori Isaki , Yo Oizumi , Akio Ôtsuka , Daijiro Harada , Haruko Kato , Blythe Danner

Hayao Miyazaki, the Japanese animation director who wowed audiences worldwide with his award-winning film Spirited Away, brings another visually spectacular tale of imagination to the screen. Sophie i... read more read more...s an 18-year-old girl who toils in the hat shop opened years ago by her late father. Often harassed by local boys, one day Sophie is unexpectedly befriended by Howl, a strange but flamboyant wizard whose large home can travel under its own power. However, the Witch of the Waste is displeased with Sophie and Howl's budding friendship, and turns the pretty young woman into an ugly and aged hag. Sophie takes shelter in Howl's castle, and attempts to find a way to reverse the witch's spell with the help of Calcifer, a subdued but powerful demon who exists in the form of fire, and Markl, who protects the four-way door which can instantly take visitors to other lands and dimensions. Howl's Moving Castle was released in North America by Walt Disney Pictures, who distributed the film both in its original Japanese and in a dubbed English version; the English-speaking voice cast includes Christian Bale, Emily Mortimer, Jean Simmons, Lauren Bacall, and Billy Crystal. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

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PG, 1 hr. 59 min.

Directed by: Hayao Miyazaki

Release Date: June 17, 2005

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DVD Release Date: March 7, 2006

Stats: 17,371 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (17,371)

  • aquateen2
    April 6, 2012
    aquateen2
    [img]http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/user/icons/icon13.gif[/img]

    So much imagination. Hayao Miyazaki is one of my favorite film directors but I felt let down with Howl's Moving Castle. It's visually beautiful and the environments are well drawn and detailed but it's a ... read moreshame though because I have to say the film's 2 hour length was far too stretched and there isn't enough going on in the film that kept my interest. Howl's Moving Castle is worth seeing just for the animation detail that Hayao Miyazaki has put into it and i'm sure you'll love it if your part of a mainstream audience but it's not for big Miyazaki fans who have seen his better, even darker pieces of work. His best light hearted film is Ponyo.
  • fb791220692
    December 30, 2011
    fb791220692
    Some of the events could use a bit of explaining (there's a war WHY?), but Howl's Moving Castle features maybe the coolest art direction I have yet to see in an animated movie, and the same beautiful animation Miyazaki is known for; almost every single shot could work as a beauti... read moreful wall painting. The characters are also often charming, and its surprising how many big American names Disney got for the voice acting (Christian Bale, Emily Mortimer, Billy Crystal, etc.)
  • fb1216165431
    November 8, 2011
    fb1216165431
    Elegant and pure, Howl's Moving Castle is a charming animation feature about a young lady cursed by an evil witch. A genius Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki production, Howl's Moving Castle is a visual wonder that revels in boundless imagination. Remarkable.
  • deano
    April 7, 2011
    deano
    I love this Japanese animation film entertaining the adventure, fantasy and romance between young Sophie and magician Howl - brilliant.
    These delicate pastel images beautifully suit the fairytale fantasy adapted from Diana Wynne Jones's book. The result doesn't match Hayao Miyaz... read moreaki's Spirited Away but is lively and, thanks to Calcifer and a fat wheezing dog, funny too.
    The is the first one of Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli films I ever watched.
  • coollala0910
    February 21, 2011
    coollala0910
    This is the anime version of "The Wizard of Oz". Take my word. Also, this is very different from Miyazai's other work since the concept is not his. It is loosely based on a little-known American novel of the same name. Lets get on to the review!

    "Howl's Moving Castle" tells th... read moree story of a beautiful young woman (Seriously, for an anime character, shes got looks.) named Sophie. She is then cursed by the hideous Witch of the Waste (Say that five times fast! Sounds like "Witch of the West"!) how turns her into a suprisingly cute 90-year old woman. She then searches for for a wizard simply known as Howl, who is voiced by the too-good-for-words Christian Bale. She then helps inmprove his life, and falls for him, while traveling in his awesomely animated moving castle.

    Great story, awesome voice acting, stunning beautiful, and just plain epic! This is definetly worth the watch! Just like "Spirited Away", the first viewing is memorable. If you're a fan of fantasy, anime, and comic books (due to the inclusion of Christian Bale), this is the movie for you!

    This is my third favorite anime film behind "Spirited Away" and "My Neighbor Totoro".

    "Find me in the future!"
  • animegirlaya
    January 29, 2011
    animegirlaya
    Directed by Hayao Miyazaki and voices by Takuya Kimura, Akihiro Miwa, Tatsuya Gashūin and Ryūnosuke Kamiki

    About a decade and a half ago, Hayao Miyazaki, the mogul of Japanese cinema, burst into the Hollywood scene with the delightful 'Castle in the Sky.' Since then... read more he has been recognized world wide as one of the globes finest film makers with his most recent successes, 'Princess Mononoke', and his Oscar winning movie, 'Spirited Away.' I have always loved Miyazaki, and have seen all of his films, but never one in the theater. When news of a new Miyazaki film reached my ears I was delighted to get the chance to see the master's work on the big screen. Let's just say that 'Howl's Moving Castle' did not disappoint.

    [IMG]http://i51.tinypic.com/2s9xiet.gif[/IMG]

    'Howl's Moving Castle' was greeted with not so enthusiastic reviews as that of 'Spirited Away,' which is understandable. Miyazaki tells his tale outside the parameters of common western storytelling. He takes liberties with everything, telling it how he wants it to be told, and at first it is a little strange because of the failure of recognition of classic plot points we are so used to seeing, and critics such as Roger Ebert have marked it as below par Miyazaki because of this. I find this ridiculous, and so does Miyazaki. In a recent interview Miyazaki said "The fact that you would expect a story to be told a certain way is ridiculous." I quite agree Mr. Miyazaki. The film is one of his best, abundant in rich imagination and delightful characters set in a world of fantastical sights and sounds, Where everyone has a fly-machine (Miyazaki is an aviation fanatic), and wizards walk among the common folk.

    Young Sophie Hatter is cursed by the Witch of the Waste, and turns into an old hag. Ashamed of how she looks, she flees into the hills where a moving castle roams the hills. It is said to belong to the young and handsome wizard Howl, who has a bad reputation. Within the castle, Sophie befriends the fire demon Calcifer who promises to help her become young again. One catch, she must help Calcifer to be free of Howl, and Calcifer cannot tell her how. However, Sophie agrees to stay and try and find out about the contract threw other ways. Still, Howl can see that Sophie is under a spell (like Calcifer can) and falls in love with her for who she is and not what she looks like. Sophie manages to bring life to the moving castle, and help Howl to face his former tutor, Madam Sulimen.

    'Howl's Moving Castle' is riddled with classic Miyazaki: strong women characters, open landscapes, flying machines that are so fantastical you don't care whether the make sense or not, and the horridness of war. These add strength to the love story of Howl and Sofi. Miyazaki uses his wonderful power to take classic, almost mythological and fairy tale stories we all know, and archetypal characters and make them his own, until we don't even recognize the stories we have hear a thousand times, and it feels as if we are seeing and hearing them for the first time. He does this with a host of wonderful characters. More strange creatures play prominent role here then any other Miyazaki film.

    The film surpasses even 'Spirited Away' in sheer scope and majesty. There is Calcifer, the wonderfully comic fire demon, on Turniphead, the Scarecrow that leads Sofi to Howl's magical moving castle. The castle itself is one reason to see the film. Miyazaki succeeds in giving the castle personality. It lumbers along on its thin chicken-like legs, everything pushing, pulling, pumping and gyrating in perfect synchronization.

    What is truly amazing about 'Howl's Moving Castle' is how it reaches the imagination and delightfulness of 'Spirited Away' with the sublimity of 'Princess Mononoke,' while standing on its own, perfectly unique. There have been complaints of lack of proper character development, but like the point before this is no ordinary story. The characters are thrust into a world they do not know, and there they must adapt, and live outside what they have known all their lives. It is not a story of who they were, but what they have become, or what they must become. It does not dwell on the past, and gets right into the story, not pausing for cheesy back stories we have come to get used to. It is like nothing I have ever seen before.

    On a final note: the American voice casting is brilliant, possibly the best ever on a Miyazakie film, which is saying quite a lot. Billy Crystal, Christian Bale, and others provide perfect performances. Also I encourage you to see this film on the big screen before it leaves, this may be the master of animations last film, and seeing this film in the theater, or any Miyazaki film is a wonderful experience, and not to be missed. I hope it is not Miyazaki's last, for that would be a true lost to cinema, but even if he does leave, 'Howl's Moving Castle' is a wonderful parting film.

    Keiko's score 99-100!
  • mumby1988
    December 14, 2010
    mumby1988
    There seems to be a misconception that Japanese animation is completely distinct and removed from its Western counterparts to the point of outright hostility. While the visual sensibilities of Pixar and Dreamworks don't reflect anime traditions, there is a greater exchange of sty... read moreles and stories that one might expect. This is supported by the fact that it was John Lasseter, the creator of Toy Story, who first brought Hayao Miyazaki's work to American audiences.

    This cross-pollination of cultures is evident in both Spirited Away (which won Miyazaki an Oscar) and the follow-up Howl's Moving Castle. Where Spirited Away took the central idea of The Wizard of Oz (written by an American) and completely reinvented it, this film takes a Welsh novel and gives it the classic Miyazaki twist. The result is a very loose adaptation of Diane Wynne Jones' novel which has all the familiar Miyazaki trappings - it's filled with wonder, beautiful, and totally, lovably bonkers.

    If you try to write out the plot of one of Miyazaki's films, you would quickly have to give up, either because of their complexity or for their tendency to seem like total nonsense when viewed in abstract. There's certainly a lot in Howl's Moving Castle which makes one laugh, if out of surprise as much as genuine humour. Quite apart from a metal castle which walks around the hilly landscape, we have a scarecrow that comes to life (another Oz reference), a boy who becomes an old man by putting on a cloak, and of course a talking fire (voiced by Billy Crystal in the English language version).

    As we have come to expect from Miyazaki, the animation is spectacularly beautiful and manages to marry an old-fashioned, hand-drawn aesthetic with more modern, CG-orientated techniques. Being a deliberately loose adaptation, the director doesn't make a concerted effort to situate us in a specific time and place; indeed that would be rather futile, since the doors of the house can lead to anywhere.

    What we are given is a beautifully crafted, fantastical setting with heavy overtones of steampunk, a world which seems green and tranquil one minute and dark and aggressive the next. Howl's secret garden, with meadows filled with flowers and the mill with its slow-turning water wheel, is counterpointed by the battle scenes in the clouds, with Howl in bird form dodging missiles and strangely impossible aeroplanes being blown to smithereens. If we insist on imposing a time period, we seem to be in the early-20th century due to the presence of imperial regalia. It's not quite Wales, not quite continental Europe, and we're certainly not in Japan.

    For all its beauty, there is an appealing sense of the grotesque to Howl's Moving Castle. There's nothing approaching the darkness of Spirited Away or moments of Princess Mononoke, and the film's U certificate means there's nothing that will terrify very young children. But the animation is so organic and perfectly weighted that when the moments come they are emphasised. The blob-men who can seep through cracks in doors are incredibly creepy, as is the Wicked Witch of the Wastes herself (Oz again). When we first meet the Witch, she is simply intimidating. But by the time she has climbed all those steps, bathed in sweat and the fat rings becoming more apparent, there is very little about her that does not send a shiver down one's spine.

    For the most part, however, these sequences are balanced out by moments of genuine magic. The film doesn't waste time in introducing magic to Sophie's otherwise mundane life: by the ten-minute mark she has befriended a wizard and walked over the rooftops on thin air. The first time we see Calcifer, as two amorphous eyes peeping out from the ashes, we can't quite believe what we are seeing. The film has such a natural touch when it comes to the magical or supernatural that we feel instantly absorbed, and that has a much more powerful effect than any amount of dry exposition.

    But the heart of Howl's Moving Castle is rooted not so much in magic but in a great story about ageing, love and the burden of having a heart. Western culture is obsessed with youth and staying young at all costs: while experience is rewarded, old age is frowned upon as something unwanted, and the elderly are often regarded as being obsolete. How fantastic, then, to have a children's film in which the central protagonist, who rapidly ages against her will, ends up embracing her advanced years and seeing all the good in her new-found state?

    When we first meet Sophie, she is drifting through life unsure what to make of herself. Her older sister berates her for not looking out for herself, and she seems lonely and unsuited to life as a hat-maker. When the Witch of the Waste first casts the spell on her, her reaction is largely one of panic, followed by funny consolations that "everything will be alright". But despite her considerable physical handicap, Sophie is not the type to sit around moping. Her age does not prevent her from either having adventures or saving those around her. When her youth is restored at the end of the film, her hair remains grey as a reminder of this precious knowledge of the value of age.

    Against this example of good will and charity, we have the character of Howl, a man of immense abilities and good looks but who is also distant and haughty. One of his very first conversations with Sophie inside the castle sees him screaming at her for mixing up the lotions, causing him to accidentally dye his hair. Howl dresses like the anime equivalent of a New Romantic, and his affection for Sophie appears to come from a desire more than anything to show off.

    As the film wears on, however, we discover more about Howl's past and our opinion of him becomes more adjusted. The beautiful sequence of Howl catching Calcifer and swallowing a fallen star makes his predicament more tragic, and sets up a change in all that has gone before. Under normal circumstances this time travel plot point would seem like a clunky deus ex machina, but here it is handled sensitively and feels seamlessly integrated. Howl regains his heart and realises he must adjust to a life built around empathy; he may still have his powers, but now he is more aware of their consequences and his ability to use them for more than selfish gain.

    The film also deserves praise for the quality of its English language dub. The film is easy enough to understand through subtitles, but if one insists upon a dub then this is of a very high quality. The recording, which was personally supervised by Lasseter, took longer than expected because of the engineers getting wrapped up in the story. Whenever clips would be played back, they would spend so much time enjoying the film that they would forget to check the levels or that it had synced correctly. What more proof do you need?

    There are a couple of small weaknesses with the film which prevent it from being a classic. The tone of Miyazaki's work is often very whimsical, and there are moments in which one's tolerance for such whimsy is tested. In the last half hour the story starts to run out of steam as all the threads are tied up, and the revelation about Turnip Head's true identity doesn't completely hold up when you consider what comes straight afterwards.

    In all though, Howl's Moving Castle is a very good piece of animation with all the magic of Miyazaki's previous work and the spirit of the original novel. Its characters are well-rounded and engaging, and even when watched purely as escapism it never fails to make you smile. Despite its little flaws, which prevent it from being top-flight Miyazaki fare, it retains a radiance and playful joy which will guarantee that it ages well. It's not Spirited Away, but it's still really, really good.
  • MeetMeinMontauk
    September 5, 2010
    MeetMeinMontauk
    I didn't like as much as other Miyazaki films, but it was still entertaining to watch, very beautiful and creative. Especially with Billy Crystal's voice in it.
  • cosmo313
    June 9, 2010
    cosmo313
    This was my first exposure to Miyazaki, and I wasn't really sure what to expect. It's was maybe a tad too whimsical for me in places (or at least the type of whimsy I'm not used to), and I have no idea what the hell was going on during the last 30 mins. However, I really enjoyed... read more the look of things and the music. The cast is good too, especially Billy Crystal: he's the best.
  • 3niR
    April 3, 2010
    3niR
    AWESOME!

View All Howl's Moving Castle Reviews

Critic Reviews

Richard Corliss
September 7, 2008
Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine

Palaces and shimmering lakes, warplanes and fire sprites all come to life at the breath of Miyazaki's graphic genius. Full Review

Ken Tucker
December 9, 2005
Ken Tucker, New York Magazine

There is giggling, belly-laughing, and gasping to be done watching Howl's Moving Castle. Full Review

Roger Moore
June 17, 2005
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel

Howl's Moving Castle moves -- in short, choppy, jumpy jerks that will never make anyone forget how fluid the truly great hand-drawn cartoons look by comparison. Full Review

Bruce Westbrook
June 17, 2005
Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle

So richly detailed and colorful that one almost aches from the beauty. Full Review

Terry Lawson
June 17, 2005
Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press

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. Full Review

Richard Nilsen
June 16, 2005
Richard Nilsen, Arizona Republic

The world it gives us to live in, for a couple of hours, is pure magic. It is one of those places we might wish never to leave. Full Review

Philip Wuntch
June 16, 2005
Philip Wuntch, Dallas Morning News

Choppy story lines and threadbare characterization often hamper live-action adventures, and Mr. Miyazaki's newest anime endeavor suffers from similar handicaps. Full Review

Rex Reed
June 16, 2005
Rex Reed, New York Observer

The whole thing has the heavenly whimsy of Ludwig Bemelmans' illustrations from the classic French children's books. Full Review

Richard Roeper
June 13, 2005
Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper

An insanely creative work. Full Review

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie
June 12, 2005
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The procession of enchanting and spectacular images is intoxicating. Full Review

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Facts

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    • Sophie (English Version): I'm fatter than ever, yet the wind blows right through me!
    • Sophie (English Version): I'm fatter than ever, yet the wind blows right through me!
    • Howl (English Version): I see no point in living if I can't be beautiful.
    • Howl (English Version): You're a Natural.
    • Sophie (English Version): Oh, my Shawl!
    • Calcifer (English Version): May all your bacon burn.
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Howl's Moving Cas... : Watch Free on TV

Howl's Moving Castle Trivia

  • In what movie was there a moving castle?  Answer »
  • Name the film Howl: Calcifer, move the castle sixty miles west. [walks away] Howl: And while you're at it, make hot water for my bath. Calcifer: Fine, like moving the castle isn't hard enough!   Answer »
  • Who is the voice of Howl in Howl's Moving Castle?  Answer »
  • In "Howl's Moving Castle", what color does Howl's hair turn when sophie "cleans" the bathroom?  Answer »
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