Majo no Takkyubin   Kiki's Delivery Service

New Articles

1). Los Angeles Times

April 4, 1990, Wednesday, Home Edition

SECTION: Calendar; Part F; Page 1; Column 5; Entertainment Desk

JAPANESE FILM: THE SINKING SUN;

FILM: DESPITE THE REPUTATION OF ITS CLASSIC CINEMA, THE INDUSTRY IS STARVING FOR GOOD SCRIPTS, CHURNING OUT PLENTY OF MOVIES THAT RARELY MAKE A PROFIT.

By KARL SCHOENBERGER, TIMES STAFF WRITER

TOKYO

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Consider last year's No. 1 box office hit, "Kiki's Delivery Service", which pulled in about $35 million in ticket sales. This was an animated film about a clumsy adolescent witch who delivers packages by broomstick. Animator Hayao Miyazaki lumped dirigibles with television sets in an oddly incoherent European landscape, where signs at the boulangerie are written in Japanese characters.

Despite the cartoon's conceptual flaws, Miyazaki's fable about the rite of passage into teen-age self-confidence still managed to outshine most the rest of the domestic film industry's 1989 crop, at least in terms of screenplay and production quality. And Kiki's acting was arguably more realistic than the melodramatic outbursts of her human colleagues.

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2). Chicago Tribune

November 5, 1990, Monday, NORTH SPORTS FINAL EDITION

SECTION: TEMPO; Pg. 3; ZONE: C

Cornering the market

American films dominate Japan, and the trend grows stronger

By Janice Fuhrman, TOKYO

Japan has conquered world market after world market during its postwar economic resurgence, but its home-grown movie industry is proving no match for "Made in America" films.

Critics say rampant commercialism, self-censorship and shrinking domestic audiences have badly damaged the Japanese industry and led to mediocrity.

But the biggest threat may be the popularity of American movies in Japan, which has prompted Japanese investors to put their money into Hollywood instead of local studios.

"The world has looked up to U.S. entertainment since the end of World War II," says Bill Ireton, managing director of Warner Bros. (Japan) Inc. "To the Japanese, American movies are hip and trendy, and Japanese audiences would rather be dead than unfashionable."

Japan is the largest foreign market for U.S. films. American movies accounted for 61 percent of all pictures seen here in 1989, according to Ireton.

The two top box-office draws last year among Japanese movies were animated films. But even the No. 1 Japanese film, "Kiki's Delivery Service", brought in less than half the 4.4 billion yen ($32 million) earned by "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade."

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3). South China Morning Post

August 22, 1994

SECTION: FEATURE; Tv Eye; Pg. 24

A joy to watch

David Dalton

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PEARL'S reason for showing the films of Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki is that they are immensely popular among Chinese-speakers. Chinese-speakers make up 80 per cent of the channel's viewers - a figure that gets advertisers salivating. Financially, there is very little mileage in films like Colonel Blimp, which is why they are few and far between.

Last week's Miyazaki movie was Totoro. This week's is Kiki's Delivery Service (9.30pm), which tells the story of a young witch who inherits two magical skills: flying on a broomstick and concocting herbal medicine. There is a moral in this film somewhere, but you can work it out for yourselves.

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4). South China Morning Post

September 11, 1994

SECTION: SUNDAY MAGAZINE; Pick Of The Tv Flicks; Pg. 47

Pick of the TV flicks

JOHN DYKES

A CONCERNED reader called the other day to wonder aloud just who TVB's programmers think we are. Or, more specifically, just how old they think we are. His question was prompted by the bizarre sight recently of the Monday 9.30 pm slot being taken up not by blazing guns, plunging cleavages and thrusting pectorals, but rather by impossibly cute little Japanese girls with blue hair and flying cats. They star in films like Kiki's Delivery Service and Only Yesterday, which look as if they are set in olde worlde France.

In a country where most people's idea of a thumping good read is a kung fu comic, and where Sesame Street is submerged beneath Japanese cartoon kids every afternoon, it's hardly surprising that these expansionist tendencies should be flaring up again, but surely they could be restricted to the Chinese channels - after all, it's the "crossover" audience that TVB Pearl is after. Mind you, judging by the way Announcements of Public Interest talk down to us ("vote, vote and everyone will be happy!"), perhaps it's understandable that TVB should assume we all have a mental age of 11.

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