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| I just spent my Saturday early afternoon watching this gem of a movie on the CW11. It's called Kiki's Delivery Service, and as much as I hate that it'd been dubbed into English, and what's more that the title character was voiced by none other than KIRSTEN DUNST, bahhh, I LOVED that I was able to see this on tv again. Especially since I have no idea where the hell my own VHS copy is. Granted, my tape was dubbed over in Chinese, but at least that's closer than in English. Except that, watching it again, I now understand a lot more of it than I did as a little girl. In retrospect, I don't even know if I knew what was going on since much of what happens in the movie, not the actual plot, but the subtext seems unfamiliar to me. Then again, who knew what subtext even was at the age of 8? Oh man, this is awesome. So Kiki is a thirteen year old witch who has to leave her home and go to another city and "find herself" and train her powers. She settles on this bustling city that's very different from her hometown and throughout the film, you can catch various tones of class tension that I could not have picked up on when I was younger. She finds the city threatening and unfriendly. Her black cat, Jiji, who can talk to her, wants them both to leave but Kiki is determined to stay. Especially after she meets Osono, the owner of a small bakery and she offers her room and board in turn for helping out at the shop sometimes. It is then that Kiki also starts her delivery service, deciding that her only skill thusfar is flying, she can make some money delivering things for people. There's also a boy named Tombo (hello, voice of Matt Lawrence!) who is quite enchanted by her ability to fly (he is part of something called the Aviation Club and is constructing a plane out of his bike. I don't know, whatever.) At first they clash, because Kiki feels insulted that he would dare to approach her and chat her up, thinking it rude that a boy would talk to a girl before they were introduced. Yada yada, at some point, when Kiki starts to feel depressed about being in the city, she loses her ability to fly and spends some time trying to find out why, with the help of her older sister-type, painter friend who lives in a cabin in the woods (voiced by Janeane Garofolo). Related to the loss of her powers, she also finds that she can no longer communicate with her cat. Of course, in the end, she figures things out or whatever and can fly again. And in the American version, when her cat runs up to her, we hear him (voiced by Phil Hartman, ladies and gentlemen) call her name, implying that henceforth, they can talk to her each other again. However, in the original Japanese (and Chinese dubbed) versions, this never happens. And the director, Hayao Miyazaki, has said that the cat represents the child in Kiki, and the ability for them to understand each other at the end of the film, was supposed to be an indication that she has grown up now. Why this discrepancy exists in the versions, I can't understand. All in all, it's a rather beautiful coming-of-age story. Originally. I used to cry a little whenever I watched this movie, I don't know why, but it always made me so sad. I guess at a young age, I was already very attentative and aware of childhood loss and the fragility of innocence. It's so tender! Wah! And watching this English version on TV for the first time, I definitely got a little misty-eyed when Kiki said goodbye to her parents. Wah, emotions. This melody has been such a big, forgotten part of my childhood, I could cry. This is the "music video"?: Part 1 of the Japanese version, with English subtitles (you can find the other parts listed on the sidebar: And here's the English language version so you can hear the lovely [GAG] voice of the Dunst. | ||||||
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