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Spirited Away, or Sen to Chihiro
no Kamikakushi (千と千尋の神隠し; "The spiriting away of Sen and
Chihiro") is a
movie (2001)
by
Japanese
anime director and
manga artist
Miyazaki Hayao created at
Studio Ghibli.
The movie won the
Oscar for
Best Animated Feature Film at the 75th Annual
Academy Awards ceremony in 2003 and the best animation awards from the
National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, the
Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the
New York Film Critics Circle. It shared First Prize at the
2002
Berlin Film Festival with
Paul Greengrass'
Bloody Sunday. The film also made it to dozens of top ten lists
by American critics in 2002.
Spirited Away was released in
Japan in July
2001, drawing an audience of around 23 million and revenues of 30
billion
yen (approx. $250 million), and it became the highest-grossing film in
Japanese history (beating
Titanic), and it is said that a sixth of the Japanese population (as
of 2002) has seen it. The movie was subsequently released in the
United States in
September 20,
2002 and made slightly over 10 million dollars by September 2003. It
was dubbed into English by
Disney and was released in
North America by its Buena Vista distributing arm. It was released in
the US in DVD format on April 15, 2003 where the attention brought by the
Oscar win made the title a strong seller.
It is often commented that the film constitutes an allegory on the
progression from childhood to maturity, and the risk of losing one's
nature in the process. There are perhaps also veiled references to
competing political ideologies.
Miyazaki Hayao, the
film director of "My
Neighbor Totoro" (1988) and "Princess
Mononoke" (1997) as well, came out of retirement to make this film
after meeting the daughter of a friend, on whom the main character is
based.
In the movie, we meet Chihiro, a little girl who moves to the country
with her parents. As they wander off to explore a tunnel in the woods,
they are magically transported into another world, a kind of mythological
Japanese spirit world (drawn from the
Shinto religious tradition). By mysterious circumstances, they are
trapped, and Chihiro has to save herself and her parents.
The small family enter what is apparently an abandoned village street,
lined with restaurants, where the father finds a place to eat and digs in.
Chihiro hesitates outside, watching her parents eat like pigs - and in
fact they do turn into pigs!
When Chihiro's distress at losing her parents is compounded by
discovering that she's turning transparent, a mysterious boy or young man
named Haku comforts her and gives her something to eat which turns her
solid again. He escorts her into the spirit world palace of Yubaaba and
admonishes her that the only way she can remain safely is to find work
there.
Chihiro follows Haku's advice, descending a long outdoor staircase to
the boiler room where she asks the janitor for work. He rebuffs her, until
one of the coal-carrying sprites (reminiscent of
My Neighbor Totoro's
soot sprites) collapses under an extra-heavy lump. Chihiro takes the
sprite's place and feeds the boiler, which opens the door to work in the
bath house.
A young woman named Lin helps Chihiro find her way through the
labyrinthine palace undetected, diverting a fellow servant by tantalizing
him with food while Chihiro squeezes into an elevator behind a gross but
benign radish spirit.
Pulled into Yubaaba's penthouse suite, Chihiro discovers a regal but
monstrous lady reminiscent of the Ugly Duchess in
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, who dotes on an equally monstrous
(and unfeasibly large) baby. Chihiro repeatedly and stubbornly asks for a
job, and finally Yubaaba consents, on condition that she give up her name
(somewhat like the lady octopus monster demanding Ariel's voice in
The Little Mermaid). Yubaaba literally takes possession of
Chihiro's name, grasping the Chinese characters from the contract in her
hand and giving Chihiro the first character of her original 2-character
name: Sen.
While at work Sen lets in a spirit called No-face who in return helps
her perform one of her tasks at the bath-house. However he also goes out
of control and tempts the staff at the bath-house with fake gold and
swallows a few of them. Meanwhile Haku who has taken the shape of a dragon
is pursued and attacked by a large group of flying paper objects. He is
badly injured but makes his way to Yubaba's quarters. Sen follows him
there with one of the paper objects having attached itself to her back
without her knowing it.
She meets Yubaba's giant baby boy who wants to play with her. She
manages to get away from him and finds Haku who is badly injured. The
paper object stuck on her back transforms into Xeniba: Yubaba's twin
sister. She was chasing Haku because he had stolen a seal from her. Zeniba
transforms the baby into a little rat-like creature because he makes too
much noise. Haku cuts Zeniba into two and also falls down a shaft taking
Sen with her. They land safely in Kamaji's room.
Sen manages to treat Haku and make him spit out the seal that he stole
from Zeniba. She decides to take it to her and travels there with No-face
and the little baby-creature. When Yubaba finds out that her baby is
missing she is furious. Haku manages to make a deal: he will get the baby
back and in return Yubaba must set free Sen and her parents.
Haku(now a dragon) finds Sen at Zeniba's cottage. The two of them fly
back to the bathouse. On the way Sen remembers that Haku is actually a
river spirit and tells him his name. This frees Haku from the control of
Yubaba. At the bathhouse Sen has to perform one last task to free her
parents. She has to pick them out from a group of pigs. She correctly
answers that none of the pigs are her parents. As a result she and her
parents are set free and return to the human world.
The movie stars the following actors (listed in English
version/Japanese version format):
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Daveigh Chase/Rumi
Hiiragi as Chihiro Ogino/Sen, a 10-year-old girl
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Jason Marsden/Miyu Irino as Master Haku, a mysterious 12-year-old
boy who befriends Chihiro and works for Yubaaba as a silver dragon
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Suzanne Pleshette/Mari Natsuki as Yubaaba, a monstrous old woman who
runs the bath house, and her good witch sister Zeniba
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Michael Chiklis/Takashi
Naitτ as Chihiro's father who gets turned into a pig
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Lauren Holly/Yasuko Sawaguchi as Chihiro's mother who also gets
turned into a pig
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John Ratzenberger/Tsunehiko Kamijo as the assistant manager
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Bob Bergen as the Frog, also played by Tatsuya Gashuin, and No Face/Kaonashi
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Tara Strong/Ryunosuke Kamiki as Boh, Yubaaba's monstrous baby on
whom she dotes
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Susan Egan/Yumi Tamai as Lin, a young woman who serves as a
bodyguard to Sen
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David Ogden Stiers/Bunta Sugawara as Kamaji, the six-armed janitor
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