Howl's Moving Castle (2004) on Netflix
PG20041h 59mAdventureAnimationFamily
A witch's curse turns young milliner Sophie into an elderly woman. She takes refuge in the walking castle of the wizard Howl, and the fire demon Calcifer proposes a trade.
- Netflix4.2/5
- IMDb8.2/10521,801 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes88%
Trailer
Plot summary
Sophie Hatter makes hats and is the eldest of three sisters. On her way to visit Lettie, she crosses paths with the wizard Howl. The Witch of the Waste comes into the shop afterward and transforms her into an old woman, and the curse keeps her from speaking of it. Sophie walks out into the countryside and meets a scarecrow that she names Turnip Head, and it guides her to the roaming castle of Howl. She goes in uninvited and finds Markl, Howl's apprentice, and Calcifer, the fire demon who drives the castle's magic. Calcifer strikes a bargain: he will undo her curse if she severs his tie to Howl, though he cannot explain what that tie is. When Howl turns up, Sophie tells him Calcifer has taken her on as a cleaning woman.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Howl's Moving Castle (2004)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- On the eve of the Iraq War, Hayao Miyazaki decided to make a film that he expected would be poorly received in the United States, part of the anti-war stance running through Howl's Moving Castle.
- Mamoru Hosoda of Toei Animation was originally chosen to direct the film, but quit after Studio Ghibli executives rejected many of his concept ideas; the project was then shelved until Hayao Miyazaki took over.
- Because Diana Wynne Jones' novel never explained how the castle moved, Hayao Miyazaki worked out how it might, arriving at the image of a castle on chicken legs.
- Novelist Diana Wynne Jones had no input or involvement in the production, so Hayao Miyazaki traveled to England in the summer of 2004 to give her a private viewing of the finished film.
- Though Howl's Moving Castle was produced digitally, its original backgrounds were drawn and painted by hand before being digitized, and the characters were drawn by hand and then scanned into the computer.
- The Cité internationale de la tapisserie in Aubusson, France, worked with Studio Ghibli from 2019 to 2024 on five tapestries based on Miyazaki's works, two of them depicting scenes from Howl's Moving Castle.
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