Howl's Moving Castle: The Story
The movie begins with a teenage girl named Sophie who works at a hat shop that was previously owned by her father. While her mother was always out dating other men, she leads a lonely life, working day and night at the shop making hats.
One day Sophie decides to visit her younger sister who works across town in a bakery. On her way there, she meets trouble in the form of two soldiers who refuse to let her pass. Just when Sophie fails to know what to do, a handsome wizard suddenly appears by her side and puts a spell on the soldiers, forcing them to march away. Mystified by the young man, who is now escorting her, she grows nervous and fears he is the wizard named Howl who is rumored to eat young girl’s heart. Before they can exit the alley, a swarm of black grimy phantoms began to pursue them. In order to lose them, the young man lifts him and Sophie into the sky and “air-walks” towards a balcony. Soon, Sophie lands safely on the balcony where her sister works and the young man once again jumps off the ledge and disappears into the crowd below.
Sophie proceeds to see her sister, who heard she was suddenly dropped off on a balcony. Worried that her sister might have met the cruel wizard Howl, Letty, Sophie’s sister, warns her to be careful. But Sophie isn’t too worried because she thinks Howl will only eat the hearts of beautiful women, and that she herself was not beautiful. Letty then switches the topic to talk about Sophie’s life working at the hat shop and whether she is happy. Sophie thinks she is right to take over the family business after her father passed on. Upon leaving, Letty again tells her sister to think more about herself, rather than what their father would have wanted.
Returning home late, Sophie was surprised when a rich mid-age lady walks into the shop. Sophie tells the lady that the shop is closed, but the lady thinks Sophie to be quiet tacky. As a parting “gift”, the lady, who is really the Wicked Witch of the Waste, flies toward Sophie, putting a spell on her in the process that transforms her into a feeble old lady who cannot tell anyone what happened to her.
Realizing she can no longer stay at home in the condition she is currently in, Sophie leaves for the Waste. On the way, she meets a scarecrow who she calls “turnip” head. She helps it by pulling him out a bush and in return, he helps her by bring her a cane and finding her a place to stay, which just happens to be Howl’s moving castle.
Inside the castle, Sophie meets Calcifer, a friendly and humorous fire demon, and Markel, a young apprentice of Howl. From then on, she became Howl and the other’s cleaning lady. For the first time in her life, Sophie is happy where she is. She is fascinated with the castle and most importantly, in love with a certain blonde-turned black haired wizard.
Soon, Howl was called into service by the king. As a wizard trained at the royal academy, he is obligated to serve the king when the time comes for him to be called on. However, Howl has no intention to fight for the king in what he calls an idiotic war. Instead, he wants Sophie to go to the palace for him as his mother to tell the king that Howl is a lazy and good-for-nothing son who will be of no use to the king.
On her way to the palace, she finds out that the Witch of the Waste was also on her way there. Once they are in the palace, the Witch sat in a waiting area ready to be called on while Sophie is escorted to meet Suliman, the king’s top sorceress. She reveals to Sophie the real reason she called the witch and Howl to the palace. The witch, being greedy, was drained all of her power and was left as an old lady. Suliman threatens to do the same to Howl if he doesn’t gain his heart back, which she claims to be given to a demon. Howl is just too powerful to be on the loose with no heart. Just then, Howl shows up. Suliman tires to force Howl to reveal his true form, a giant black monstrous bird. Luckily, Sophie’s plea with Howl to stop listening to Suliman saved him and they were able to break free from Suliman’s illusions and escape back to the castle.
Howl realizes that Suliman is hot on his trials now and there is not way he can escape unless he changes the portals linking to the castle. So he “moved” the castle using magic back to Sophie’s hometown. There, Sophie with the help of Howl opened a flower shop and lived happily for a while.
However, Suliman’s phantom henchmen were still after Howl and the war began to become more destructive as numerous flying war machines drop bombs over where Sophie and the others are currently staying. In order to protect Sophie, Howl transforms to his bird form to fight off the machines and the bombs. But Sophie fears for Howl’s life and the fact that Howl will never turns back to human if he stays as a monstrous bird for a long, letting the form overwhelms his mind and body.
To save Howl’s life Sophie decides to break the castle’s connection to the flower shop, thus minimizing the danger that they are in as the henchmen still came after them. Lacking the magic that Howl has to move break the castle’s connection with certain portals, Sophie did the only thing she could think to do, which is to move Calcifer out of the castle and the castle collapses, thus breaking connection to the portal connecting to the flower shop.
Sophie proceeds to meet Howl by asking Calcifer to use the energy he has to move some pieces of the castle with her, Markel, and the Witch on it to Howl. But the Witch, keeping her eyes fixed on Calcifer, suddenly realized what Calcifer meant when he had mentioned that if he dies, Howl dies too – Calcifer has Howl’s heart! Greedy and still very much in love with Howl, the Witch took the heart with Calcifer, Sophie panicked as the castle began to fall apart again and pours water over the witch in hope that she would drop Howl’s heart and Calcifer. But Sophie only succeeded in putting out Calcifer’s flames, turning him blue. Before she could do anything else, she was thrown off the castle and down into a deep pit.
Sophie was heart-broken when she realized that by putting Calcifer out, she might have killed Howl too. Her tears activated a magical ring Howl had given her before she went to the palace on his behalf. Traveling back in time, she saw a young Howl who caught Calcifer in the form of a falling star. He mumbled something to the glowing star and swallowed it. Afterwards, he pulled out a red flame from his chest. Sophie suddenly understood the contract between Howl and Calcifer, that Howl was cursed to stay as a child internally because his heart is still that of a child’s when he give it to Calcifer.
Back to the present, Sophie finds Howl waiting for her in his bird form. After he carries her back to Markel and the witch, he fainted and transforms back into a human. Sophie pleads with the Witch to give Howl’s heart back, which she did reluctantly. Wishing that both Howl and Calcifer would be okay, she pushes the heart down into Howl’s chest. Calcifer turns back into a falling star as he exited from Sophie’s hands and flies into the sky.
Sophie then kisses the scarecrow, thanking him for saving them when he stops the board that they are on from sliding over the cliff. The scarecrow suddenly transforms into a young man, who claims he is actually the missing prince from the neighboring kingdom that waged war on the kingdom Sophie lives in. He was under the curse that he must be kissed by his true love in order to return human. But Sophie already has a true love. Howl finally regains consciousness and Sophie flings herself to him, happy that he is okay.
The end of the movie shows Sophie and Howl together, along with Markel, the Witch, and Calcifer, who decides to come back because he was lonely. Together, they live on flying castle that flies into the sky towards a happy future.
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