Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Graveyard of the Fireflies – Weifan Huang

A must see Japanese animation movie. In fact, a must see movie period. To me it's so far the best animation made by Studio Ghibli (the one that brought you Howl's moving castle - haven't seen this one but I don't think it will beat Graveyard of fireflies anytime). It is so rich in storyline and full of emotions that it's impossible not to feel the same emotion throughout the movie.

The beginning of the movie is actually the end of the story. It flashes to the memories of a young boy named Seita back to the times when he was struggling to survive along with his little sister, Setsuko, during the end of the WW II. As any other war related movies, it's a very sad and depressing theme as the story takes you to see how the 2 kids strive to live during the difficult times in such hard circumstances. It's so touching it will bring you to tears or at least very near to.

As with most if not all Ghibli's movies, the animation is ahead of its time (this one was published in 1988) and the soundtracks simply set the scenes perfectly. I recommend this to anyone regardless whether they watch animation or not. You won't be disappointed.

Rating 10/10

2 comments:

DWS Movie Buffs said...

Eddy T - This is indeed one of the most harrowing films set in WWII. It works so powerfully as drama that one quickly forgets it is 'only' an animated film. This would have to rank highly in my list of favourite anime films (I admit my list would be stacked with Ghibli and Pixar films). Rating: 9/10

DWS Movie Buffs said...

Shelvia:
Sounds great.
Will this DVD be available in Blockbuster though?