Plot: During her family's move to the suburbs, a sullen 10-year-old girl wanders into a world ruled by gods, witches, and spirits, and where humans are changed into beasts.
Although released on DVD through the Disney Corporation (those jerks have to control everything) this is a Japanese animation that is completely different from the usual Disney pap. There are no songs, no "message", and no talkative, unfunny sidekicks. Instead, we get beautiful, extremely well done animation, unique, quirky, instantly lovable creatures, and a fast placed plot. The Heroine is plucky and brave without any of the "you go girl" nonsense that blights so many American movies. Probably, the only drawbacks are the 2 hour length and the awful American dub. I don't know why its so hard for American companies to dub Japanese films, no doubt Disney wanted to dumb it down and make it more 'murican. Anyway, there's a Japanese version with subtitles, so its no big deal.
Summary: This is not really a kids film but it is something you can take the whole family to. One of the most popular and highly rated Animated films of the last 40 years, with good reason. Rating ****
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