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Howl no Ugoku Shiro

Howl no Ugoku Shiro (How’s Moving Castle, 2004)
This is the third Miyazaki Hayao film that I have watched and it almost hit the spot, but then…

Remember my entry about Mononoke Hime? I think Miyazaki did well in Howl no Ugoku Shiro since it is much better than Mononoke Hime. Anyway, despite the fact that this film is just the animated adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones’ Howl’s Moving Castle, I think that again, there’s something wrong with this film in terms of the characters’ background story. In the film, it wasn’t explained why did the Witch of the West cursed Sophie, and what are the possible ways to break the spell. There wasn’t a lot of information about Howl and his origins as well.

I was also annoyed by the fact that Sophie told Howl that she loves him even though they barely know each other! Sophie’s character in the film also lacks the emotions that I was looking for. It is true that she showed concern for Howl during the last parts of the film, but if she really likes Howl (as she confessed early on the film), then how come her facial expressions say otherwise?! Geeze.

Before I realized that the film was an adaptation, it seems to me that the story was forced to be put into a film because it was cramped into a 1-2 hour film. It’s as if new characters have been appearing and that they weren’t given much importance. For example, there’s Howl’s kid apprentice, Markl. The film didn’t present some background story about Markl. Why is he serving Howl. And there’s Madame Siliman. What’s her purpose in the story? Aside from being Howl’s “teacher” and “boss”, what is she doing in the film? And what about the war? Why is there a war in the first place?

I’m sorry, I’m a little upset about this film. You see, I like the film in general, but it left too many questions. It was better compared to Mononoke Hime because when I saw that film, I was thinking that the film’s going nowhere. In Howl no… however, it was doing great… But because of some loopholes, I somehow felt cheated. I was also thinking that the focus of the story will be between Sophie and Howl and then what happened was that the story shifted to Howl alone. They didn’t even discuss if Sophie’s curse was broken. I mean, even if I didn’t read the book, I should be able to enjoy the film, right?

Oh well. I’ll probably check Castle in the Sky next time to see if it’s a good film or not. So far, among Miyazaki’s films, I liked Sen To Chihiro no Kamikakushi.