HAHAHA, I had no idea this movie was so disliked! I laughed out loud reading these comments, they're so harsh! But the more I read up on it, I saw that despite the bashing, there was an equal amount of folks who liked it and had fond memories of it! So the live action’s ultimate score was still "up in the air" (pun intended)!
As a loyal fan of Fuka Koshiba I knew I was going to have to see it as SOME point anyway, much like when I first made up my mind to check out “Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon” when my love for Keiko Kitagawa was at its zenith, and I figured the time was right!
WELL, after having finished it, I have to say that the movie with Fuka Koshiba as Kiki was not bad at all! In fact, I rather liked it!! I think part of what made it all right was that it was based on the original book that the Studio Ghibli movie was based on rather that a direct lift of the Miyazaki film itself, so things flowed a LOT differently.
In fact, there were things I thought were conveyed a lot clearer than the Miyazaki film, especially the part where Kiki loses her powers (and subsequently regains them), which I felt in the Ghibli flick were more abstract.
Also, at some point in the original movie, Kiki loses the ability to hear Jiji’s voice. I’ve read that her hearing him speak is supposed to be a reflection of the child side of her, and once she is faced with reality, she loses it and that makes sense, but it always struck me as a jarring thing. In the live-action (and, I presume the original book) she never loses the ability to hear the cat, though she does lose him literally for a short while after crashing her broom in the woods…
But when she finds him, their rapport remains perfectly intact!
The next BIG complaint people have about the Live action Kiki, it's subpar CGI. True, a lot of the special effects left much to be desired, but while some of it was downright straight-to-video quality (LOL):
...I have to say I thought of lot of her flying scenes were handled quite well, very fluid and glidey and it always felt believable that she could just get on the broom and fly away in any scene!
There were also a lot of stars in this movie, Rie Miyazawa and Michitaka Tsutsui as Kiki’s parents, Machiko Ono as Osono, the woman who takes Kiki in, Yo Yoshida as Sumire the laundry Lady who befriends her, and even a small appearance by Miho Kanazawa as a troublemaking young lady….
Above all is Fuka Koshiba herself. I watched this primarily for the Fuka Goodness, and she is an absolute SWEETIE here!!! So expressive and energetic in her performance, you can already see in her the manic exuberance that would define her acting style!
The next BIG complaint people have about the Live action Kiki, it's subpar CGI. True, a lot of the special effects left much to be desired, but while some of it was downright straight-to-video quality (LOL):
She definitely has become one of my very favorite young actresses!
