Everyone’s favorite bow-headed witch is being blown up. GKIDS and IMAX are teaming up to release Kiki’s Delivery Service, the Studio Ghibli classic, across the country in 4K on the biggest screens possible this March.
When every witch comes of age, there’s a time when they must leave their home and fly to a new town. It’s that time for Kiki, who picks a lovely seaside community to reside in — but she discovers life there is not easy. Seeking a source of income, she decides to use her broom to start a delivery service, carting packages from one distance to another. That comes with its own problems, as she will find out…
Kiki will be available in its original audio with subtitles, or the English dub with Kirsten Dunst and Phil Hartman. It’s interesting they’ve kept this dub, originally made by Disney in the late 90s, when other Ghibli films have been redubbed. This is not a complaint — I love this dub and will defend it to the death (see how angry I am a couple paragraphs below when I find a piece of it messed with). Maybe the presence of revered deceased people like Hartman and Debbie Reynolds has made it untouchable.
I can confirm that Kiki in IMAX is great because….I have already seen it, sort of. My local science museum, OMSI, was built with an IMAX theater but dropped the affiliation at some point in the past. They changed the name to “Empirical Theater” but kept the immensity of the screen. And every year around this time they run a Ghibli film festival screening several of the studio’s classics in 4K. I went to see Kiki’s Delivery Service and it is pretty much what this is, only not official or nationwide.
The paintings of Kiki’s town are gorgeous and intricate and just begging to be viewed at extreme magnification, and that’s what you get here. Stuff you never noticed before will leap out at you. I would say it’s worth the money and you should give it serious consideration if it’s playing in your town…but.
When I went to see Kiki I discovered my favorite line had been cut from the English dub. As Kiki and Jiji are trying to figure out how to extract their package from a swarm of angry birds, Jiji translates what they’re squawking: “They’re calling you Egg Stealer, and you don’t wanna KNOW what else!” At my screening, Jiji said “They’re calling you Egg Stealer–” and he was cut off there. I don’t know when this happened or how, but it’s not a universal thing, is it? If so…RESTORE THE ORIGINAL LINE!
Check your local theater listings for Kiki’s Delivery Service; tickets are on sale now. The movie screens in IMAX March 13.
