toddly6666

KIRIKOU AND THE SORCERESS is a great animated film in the spirit of Hayao Miyazaki. French Director Michel Ocelot chose the legend of the little Kiriku, which he heard in his childhood, when he lived in Afrika. In a little village, a pregnant woman hears her unborn son asking: "Mother, give me to birth!" After the initial surprise, she says calmly that if he can talk, he can be born by himself. The tiny boy, basically a super fast baby, crawls out of her, stands and says: "I am Kiriku." He's told then that almost all men there, including his father, were devoured by Karaba, an evil sorceress who oppresses the rest of the tribe. After saving the other children and his own uncle from her and making the local fountain run again, Kiriku runs off to see the old Wiseman in the mountain, the only person who knows how to defeat the witch.

In his movie, Michel Ocelot tried to reproduce the Afrikan Art-style. The result is gorgeous and plenty of colour. The animation is a bit simple, but it's still beautiful to look at. It's mainly a 2-D animated movie with some use of CGI during Kiriku's Flash-like running. The women's exposed breasts and kids' nudity might shock conservatives, yet they're shown naturally, without malice. And it's in Africa, so people always accept that it's okay to see nude Africans a la National Geographic, but not nudity in other countries, which is hypocritical. The main reason this movie didn't get released in the USA is the nudity. And we all know what a ridiculous prude country the USA is when it comes to nudity, but violence is okay.

As in Hayao Miyazaki movies, the protagonist doesn't have to kill the villain to reach his goal. The movie's message is that cruelty produces more cruelty, and that we should learn to forgive - since we aren't so great ourselves.

The African-French music is excellent as well, with an unforgettable theme song that you will be humming to yourself after the end of the movie.

This Kirikuo character has franchise all written over it in a good way of course - a la Tintin or Asterix. The director has already filmed another Kiriku adventure, KIRIKOU ET LES BÊTES SAUVAGES, and was just released on French DVD, but no English subtitles. Hopefully, the same Region 1 company will release this one too.


The Region 1 NTSC DVD is not bad, but could have been better when comparing it to the much better French PAL DVD. The dvd is non-anamorphic letterboxed and looks okay when zooming in to fill your HDTV. If you zoom it in, lines will be unavoidable, so that's the only problem with the DVD. But at least it's filmed in widescreen and we weren't given a full screen pan and scan. And there is ghosting when characters move very fast. The audio is very good and generous. It has French (with removable English subtitles) and English audio, supposedly both recorded in Dobly Surround. But the English totally sounded like it was mixed as DD 5.1, especially since the Tiawanese and French DVDs have DD 5.1 surround options, and because the English audio was louder and subwoofer was kicking in. The English version is excellent, even better than the original French version. There are a few extras like a Color game for kids, and some bios, a trailer is missing and would have been nice. The French DVD of course is probably more loaded.

Excellent touching film. It's a must buy, and totally entertaining for kids and adults!

FILM: 9
DVD VIDEO: 6.5
DVD AUDIO: 8
EXTRAS: 4

twitch

I agree wholeheartedly! Ocelot is a genius and I can't wait for the chance to see Kirkikou and the Wild Beasts as well as Azur and Asmar. And the Miyazaki comparisons are 100% merited ...

toddly6666

Twitch,
Have you seen Ocelot's Princes and Princesses - the French PAL DVD is anamorphic and has english subtitles....

Tutut

Since few years there's a revival of the artistic french anime with films such as "Kirikou" or "The triplets of Belleville"


at the level of René Laloux's work ("Fantastic Planet" )

twitch

Oooh, I haven't and I didn't realize it was subbed ... off I go to buy it. Too bad they didn't sub the new Kirikou flick ... I was waiting for that one, but the wait continues ...

toddly6666

twitch, amazon France says it has english subtitles, but i don't own it so I can't confirm it for sure!

I contacted the African NYC store that has the kirikuo.net site. They said that the new Kirikuo movie could be on DVD in a year with English subtitles. But then again, that person could just be assuming or guessing...

Tutut

It seems the first edition has english subs (devedenaute.fr)
but the "Kirikou and the sorceress/Princes and princesses" new boxset (reprinting), has not.
The korean edition has english subs too. (hkflix.com)



You can browse the site of "La Fabrique" which produced Princes and princesses, in english here , and the
last Ocelot's film is in pre-order for August 18 with french hearing impaired subs only.

twitch

I've ordere dthe French Princes and Princesses, so I'll let you know when it arrives ...

Tutut

In french, but a very good and complete review at DVDMaxx.com.
On the right you can access to menus pictures and on the link under "TOUTES LES PHOTOS" to the picture gallery.

twitch

Go the french Princes disc and I'm perfectly happy with the quality of it. Video is pretty clean and the subtitles are good ...

toddly6666

twitch....how's the movie?

twitch

I've only watched the first story so far, but I liked that one a lot. It's a series of fairy tales basically, each of them involving a prince and princess and acted out by two pre-teens who link everything together. All animated as cut outs in shadow. Been short on time lately, but it's sitting at the top of my current viewing pile ...