'Off-centre' Japanese animation well worth watching

Spirited Away

Director: Hayao Miyazaki

Cast (Voices): Miyu Irino, Mari Natsuki, Rumi Hiragi.

Cert: Club.

The most successful film ever made in Japan, Spirited Away is an animated journey in which a family delves into a dark world in the same way as Alice entered the rabbit-hole.

If the film has a flaw, it lies in the feeling that the director hasn't decided what sort of film, or what sort of message, he requires from it.

Otherwise, it is clever, thoughtful and always off-centre with its strange houses, dangerous animals and threats and menaces in a disturbing world of fantasy.

Star Rating: 4/5