I have 5 things in my house that if it were burning down I would risk my life to save them; The Land of Faraway is one of them. I have a VHS copy from the U.S. that I got in 1989 when I was 3 years old. I'm 22 now and I still love the film that much, I'm actually watching it right now.
This review may contain spoilers! The Land Of Faraway or Mio Min Mio, as most people know it, is the story of a boy named Bosse. His adoptive parents hate him and let him know it, the older kids bully him, and he only has two real friends: Mrs. Lundin a nice young woman who works at a local store and Benke a boy from school. Bosse greatest dream is to have a father that loves him like Benke. One day Mrs. Lundin gives Bosse a golden apple and asks him to mail a post card for her. The post card is to the King of the Land of Faraway and says something like "the one you have been looking for is here; he will have an apple of gold in his hand". Then out of a bottle on the ground a giant head/spirit emerges and takes Bosse away to the Land of Faraway. Bosse finds out that he's really Mio the Prince of the Land of Faraway! But there is a great evil man named Kato who steals children and turns them into birds, legend says that only a Prince can kill Kato and save the children. So Mio/Bosse sets of with friend Jum-Jum/Benke on an awesome adventure to defeat Kato!
The music in the film is so beautiful and haunting; you will be humming it for days. The acting by Nick Pickard as Bosse/Mio and Christian Bale as Benke/Jum-Jum is outstanding. I particularly love the lighting in the film; firelight creates creepy shadows across the sets and really sets the mood for the darker scenes. The copy I have is old so the sound is really bad and since the movie was made in the late 1980s the video quality looks sort of fuzzy and out of focus compared to new DVDs.
I would recommend this movie to every kid I have ever met and to adults who are fantasy fans.
~*Leah