“Who are you” is a common question we ask ourselves when we are down on our luck. Who we are is only described by what we do, how we act, and what we can become. Understanding who you are and what you can become is part of growing up. Asking yourself if you are going to let something stop you is part of wondering if you are going to go beyond. Growing up is understanding that no matter what situation you’re in, you can give and must push on.

Summary

The movie begins with Chihiro and her parents moving to their new house. Her parents are excited to move but Chihiro misses her old home and friends. Her family goes through a forest to head to their new home but finds something on the way. They find a tunnel, her parents go through and Chihiro follows reluctantly. They head further and finds a train station and hear a train nearby. As they head outside they find an abandoned theme park. As they head closer to the park, Chihiro’s parents smell freshly made food. They enter the park and see that no one is there. Her parents find the delicious smell and scarf down whole plates of food. Chihiro decides to explore instead and find a still powered bath house. As she looks around, she is found by a boy and is told to cross the bridge before it turns dark. She rushes down to find her parents and sees spirits from around her. as she finds her parents she sees that they turned into pigs. Chihiro tries to head back to the train station but sees that the area was replaced by an ocean and an arriving boat. As she panics, she notices she is slowly disappearing but the boy comes back and helps her not disappear. The boy notices that a bird-like creature is looking for her and with his help they escape from its sight. The boy takes her to a bridge and tells her to hold her breath to be undetected by the spirits. But Chihiro gets surprised and breathes out, causing her and the boy to escape to a hidden location. She hides as everyone tries to find and learns that the boy’s name is Haku. To help her parents, Haku tells her to head to the boiler room and meet Kamaji, the boiler man. He tells her to tell Kamaji that she wants to work here because if she doesn’t have the witch that owns the bathhouse, Yubaba, will turn her into an animal. If she works here, she will be able to stay here and be safe from Yubaba.

Chihiro travels down to the boiler room and finds Kamaji and living pieces of soot putting coal into a furnace. She asks Kamaji for a job but he says that he has the help that he needs. When a woman comes down to hand Kamaji his food, she spots Chihiro. She tells her that she is in trouble but Kamaji tells the woman that Chihiro is his granddaughter to protect her and asks the woman to take her to Yubaba for a job. With her help, Chihiro makes it to the menacing room of Yubaba. She asks Yubaba for a job but Yubaba doesn’t think she will be useless and gets upset from Chihiro being persistent about work. As they make a lot of noise, Yubaba’s baby wakes up and starts to have a fit. Reluctantly, Yubaba makes her sign a contract and removes her name and makes her new name Sen. Haku arrives to give Sen her new job. Haku calls for Lin and tells her that Sen can be her new assistant. Lin takes Sen to her room and gives Sen her new uniform. The next day, Haku takes her to see her parents but they have turned into full pigs. To calm her down he promises to help her and as she heads back to the bath house, she sees that Haku can turn into a dragon. As night and rain falls, Sen and the other workers prepare the bath house for customers. Yubaba senses something is wrong and the other stores close down as a muddy spirit passes through. Sen guides the muddy spirit to the bath but it takes a lot of water to clean him. As Sen tries to clean him, she notices a handle in the mud and Yubaba realizes that it’s not a muddy spirit but something else. She gives Sen a rope and with the help from the whole bath house pulls out the garbage in the muddy spirit. After removing all the garbage, the spirit is revealed and gives Sen a ball and tiny bits of gold to the staff. The spirit leaves and Yubaba is proud of Sen. Later that night, Sen asks Lin “where is Haku?” but she tells her that he sometimes just disappears.

When nobody is around, a frog heads down to the bathhouse looking for more gold. But gold then drops from a spirit with no face. He brings the frog closer with gold and eats the frog to gain his voice. As another worker heads down to check out the noise, No face makes more gold and tells him that he wants a bath and lots of food. Later that morning, Sen wakes up from a bad dream about not being able to find her parents. But as she looks around, she sees that nobody is around. Sen heads down and see everyone working to make tons of food for a guest. Lin tells her that the guest is giving tons of gold but Sen heads out and tries to look for Haku. Sen sees in the distance Haku getting chased and hurt by paper birds. Haku hides in the room until the paper birds are gone but Haku leaves before Sen can help him. Sen tries to head upstairs to help Haku but she runs into No face, the spirit that helped her before. No face tries to give her gold but she doesn’t want any gold and leaves. No face gets upset and starts to eat some of the staff. Sen heads outside to get inside Yubaba’s place but runs into a giant playroom. Sen over hears Yubaba saying that Haku is going to die soon but Yubaba is about to enter the playroom. Sen hides under some cushion and Yubaba looks under them but finds her baby. Yubaba leaves but Sen is pulled in by the baby telling her to play with him. Sen gets away from him and tries to help Haku but the baby follows her and tells her if she doesn’t play with him, he will cry and bring Yubaba. Just then one the paper bird starts to talk and turns into a see through Yubaba but she is not Yubaba. She turns the baby into a hamster and the spy bird into a small bird. The witch reveals herself to Zeniba, Yubaba’s twin sister. She followed Sen to get to Haku and take back her magic golden seal. But, Haku wakes up and takes him and Sen down to the boiler room. Haku is bleeding from the inside and Sen gives him the ball the spirit gave her. Kamaji sees that it’s medicine from a river spirit and should help Haku. Haku takes the medicine and spits out the golden seal, making him turn back to his regular form. However, he is still very ill from a curse and needs to rest. Sen suggests that see takes the seal to Zeniba to break the curse and save Haku. To help her get there Kamaji gives her train tickets to Zeniba’s home but Sen is told by Lin that No face is eating more people and he wants to talk to her. Sen comes down and talks to No face but all he wants is Sen. Sen gives him the rest of the medicine ball and No face starts to throw up the stuff he ate. He chases throughout the bathhouse but keeps losing the stuff he ate. Sen makes it outside to the train tracks and No face turns back to normal. Finally, Sen makes it to the train station to get to Zeniba and No face follows her.

In the boiler room, Haku wakes up and asks where Sen went. Kamaji tells him that Sen’s true love broke the curse and she went to return the golden seal. At the same time, Yubaba gets upset about the No face incident and wants Sen’s parents to be turned into food. Haku enters the room and tells her that something of hers has been replaced. Yubaba then sees that her baby has been taken and is told that her sister has him. To give the baby back, Haku wants Yubaba to tear up Sen’s contract and return her and her parents to the human world. Yubaba agrees but want to give Sen one final test. After a while of traveling, Sen and No face finally make it to Zenbia’s house. Zenbia opens the door and Sen gives back the golden seal but Zenbia sees that the spell is broken. Impressed by it, Zenbia wants to help Sen and makes her a way to keep her protected. Sen is still worried about Haku but Haku in dragon form finds Sen and takes her back to the Bathhouse. Sen remembers what hear name is and is ready to go home. Chihiro arrives back at the Bathhouse and Yubaba gives her a final test to see who her parents are in the group of pigs. Chihiro realizes that none of the pigs are her parents and passes the test. Chihiro says her final good bye to Haku and meets her parents back at the tunnel. They passed through, seeing that they had been there for a while but Chihiro will always remember her friends.

In my opinion

This was an amazing movie and one of the best Studio Ghibl film that I have watched. It was amazing animation and great story telling. I give this movie a 9/10.