Howl's Moving Castle (2004) movie poster

Howl's Moving Castle (2004)

ハウルの動く城
"The two lived there."
ThumbScore
👍 95%Google users liked it ⓘ
Critics Score
🎬 85%
FantasyAnimationAdventure

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Where to Watch

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Director
Runtime
1h 59m
Rated
PG
Country
Japan
Language
Japanese
TMDB Rating
8.4/10 (10,890 votes)
Rotten Tomatoes
88%
Metacritic
82

Cast

Chieko Baisho as Sophie (voice)
Takuya Kimura as Howl (voice) · 79% avg
Akihiro Miwa as Witch of the Waste (voice)
Tatsuya Gashûin as Calcifer (voice)
Ryunosuke Kamiki as Markl (voice) · 85% avg
Mitsunori Isaki as Kosho (voice)
Yo Oizumi as Prince Justin / Turnip Head (voice) · 85% avg
Akio Otsuka as King of Ingary (voice) · 81% avg

Is Howl's Moving Castle good?

Yes. 95% of real audiences liked it, by Google's archived audience score. Critics agree, scoring it 85%.

Where it ranks on ThumbScore

Rank in its genre
#3 / 937 · Fantasy
Rank in its year
#1 / 175 · 2004
Rank among its director's films
#2 / 12 · Hayao Miyazaki

By audience score, among films with 500 or more votes.

Overview

Sophie, a young milliner, is turned into an elderly woman by a witch who enters her shop and curses her. She encounters a wizard named Howl and gets caught up in his resistance to fighting for the king. Wikipedia ↗

About the Film

Howl's Moving Castle is a 2004 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, based on Diana Wynne Jones's 1986 novel. The film follows Sophie, a young hat-maker who is cursed by the Witch of the Waste and transformed into a 90-year-old woman. Unable to reveal her curse, Sophie seeks refuge in the walking, steam-powered castle of the mysterious wizard Howl, a charming but cowardly figure who is entangled in a destructive war between two kingdoms.

Inside the castle, Sophie encounters Calcifer, a fire demon bound to Howl by a magical contract, and gradually forms a family with the castle's eccentric inhabitants while seeking to break both her own curse and Howl's supernatural bargain. Hayao Miyazaki's adaptation significantly departed from Jones's novel, weaving in a powerful anti-war message inspired by his opposition to the 2003 Iraq War. The animation of the castle itself — a lurching, clanking amalgamation of architectural fragments that walks across the landscape on mechanical chicken legs — was one of Studio Ghibli's most imaginative creations.

Joe Hisaishi's waltz-based score, centered around the theme "Merry-Go-Round of Life," was one of the most beautiful in Miyazaki's filmography. The English-language dub featured Christian Bale as Howl, Jean Simmons and Emily Mortimer as Sophie, and Billy Crystal as Calcifer. Howl's Moving Castle earned $235 million worldwide and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature Film.

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