The animated classic Kiki’s Delivery Service is getting a UK screening in IMAX cinemas – the first in a string of re-releases from the company, GKIDS. There was a time, many years ago, when it was almost impossible to see Studio Ghibli movies in the UK – we had to make do with things like ... Studio Ghibli | Kiki’s Delivery Service to screen in UK IMAX cinemas
The animated classic Kiki’s Delivery Service is getting a UK screening in IMAX cinemas – the first in a string of re-releases from the company, GKIDS.
There was a time, many years ago, when it was almost impossible to see Studio Ghibli movies in the UK – we had to make do with things like Warriors Of The Wind on VHS, a horribly re-edited release of Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind.
Thankfully, those days are long gone, and Miyazaki’s Japanese animation studio now enjoys the global recognition it deserves. Which brings us to the subject of the headline above: Kiki’s Delivery Service, Miyazaki’s 1989 fantasy masterpiece, is heading to IMAX screens in the UK and Ireland in August.
It’s the first in a planned string of Studio Ghibli re-releases from distributor GKIDS Films, as it announces that it now has the rights to all 23 films in the Japanese animation house’s library of classics.
These include, of course, Castle In The Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, Grave Of The Fireflies, Princess Mononoke, Ponyo, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Isao Takahata’s shimmering work of art, The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya.
As well as Kiki’s Delivery Service – the thoroughly charming coming-of-age tale about a young witch – GKIDS has two other IMAX releases planned from the same library.
Also on the horizon is the slightly less well-known Whisper Of The Heart, director Yoshifumi Kondo’s 1995 fantasy. Then there’s The Secret World Of Arrietty (or as we British prefer, Arrietty), Hiromasa Yonabayashi’s 2010 adaptation of The Borrowers by Mary Norton.
“GKIDS is delighted to extend our relationship with Studio Ghibli into the UK and Ireland, and to have this opportunity to reintroduce these incomparable films to audiences old and new,” GKIDS president David Jesteadt said in a press release announcing the releases. “We promise UK and Irish fans that we will take loving care of the Ghibli catalogue, beginning with the IMAX release of Kiki’s Delivery Service this summer, and expand from there across all home video and digital platforms.
“Our deep thanks to our longtime friends at Goodfellas for entrusting us with these masterpieces and to everyone at Studio Ghibli for their continued trust and support.”
We’ll have to wait and see whether GKIDS releases every Studio Ghibli film in cinemas – a move we’d certainly welcome. Certainly, there’ll be whole generations of youngsters and grown-ups who’ve never had the chance to see their earlier work on the big screen; again, it’s easy to forget that, before their reputation really blew up with the success of Princess Mononoke in 1997 and the Oscar-winning Spirited Away in 2001, the studio’s work was comparatively obscure among mainstream audiences.
Miyazaki’s more recent films, such as The Wind Rises and The Boy And The Heron, have enjoyed much wider releases in the UK than his earlier output. Even to an audience numbed by decades of whizzy CGI, we’d wager that the flying sequences in 1992’s Porco Rosso would still look awe-inspiring on an IMAX screen.
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If you’re reading this, GKIDS: we really want to see Porco Rosso in IMAX is what we’re saying.
Kiki’s Delivery Service comes to IMAX screens in the UK and Ireland from the 21st August. Tickets go on sale on the 9th July. To advertise this, there are a pair of new posters, which you can see below. Aren’t they lovely?
