caI’ve been working on notes for my review of Howl’s Moving Castle, the new film from Hayao Miyazaki (who brought us Spirited Away) and one of the things I’ve been thinking about is "How many masterpieces does one guy get in a lifetime?" Because Howl’s is another one – a beautiful, sweet, funny and exciting story about magic and love set in a weird steam-powered industrial age Europe (if the setting reminds you of Steamboy, don’t even bother comparing. That film was a soulless spectacle, and boring to boot – Howl’s is all about heart).

There are two version of Howl’s coming to theaters June 10th – a subtitled version and an English language dub, which features the voices of Christian Bale, Billy Crystal and Lauren Bacall. I saw the dub, by the way, and it’s overseen by Pixar’s Pete Docter, who does a fantastic job. It’s one of the best dubs I’ve seen… well, since Spirited Away, whose dub was also overseen by a Pixar person. The clip that we’re proud to present to you is from the English dub, and I think you’ll see how good it is.

The clip is from one of the film’s action scenes – it’s a time of war, and our heroes must escape the capitol city of Suliman. There’s more to it (including the fact that the old lady in the clip is actually a young girl who has been aged by a nasty witch), but that should be enough to let you enjoy the clip we have.

Quicktime

Small

Large

Windows Media

Small

Large