Thursday 19 May 2005

Kiki's Delivery Service (Hayao Miyazaki, 1989)

A straight-forward charming animation about a young witch growing up. It's one of the earlier films by Hayao Miyazaki. You can see his trademark of truly life-like child animation developing which he later extends in "Princess Monoke" and "Spirited Away". It's a bit odd in that you have completely Japanese characters in a totally European town and culture. Nevertheless, kids will love it and adults can appreciate the artistry.

2 comments:

  1. Yep, I can highly recommend this one. It's a great coming of age story. Please see this charming version before the CG-filled live action version comes out! (Rumours abound about this.)


    If you can handle subtitles, give the Japanese-language one a try. I found Jiji (the cat) to be way too Disney-ish in the English version; the Japanese version makes Jiji into just exactly the kind of talking cat I'd like to have.


    My fave: My Neighbour Totoro.

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  2. I've seen both the Japanese language one with subtitles and the English one. I'm afraid I never noticed the difference in Jiji. I'll watch out for that. He is a great cat though.


    I wasn't going to go back that far in Miyazaki's filmography but if you recommend it, I'll add My Neighbour Totoro to my DVD rental list. Thanks.

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