The Cat Returns film review

RELEASED  27th May 2005 (UK)

CERTIFICATE U

DIRECTOR Hiroyuki Morita

CAST Chiziru Ikewaki, Yoshihiko Hakamada, Aki Maeda

RUNNING TIME  75 mins.

“Always believe in yourself. Do this and no matter where you are, you will have nothing to fear” this is said by the baron (hakamada) he says this to Haru (Maeda). This sentence becomes relevant later on in the film when Haru starts changing into a cat. I thought that the movies voice actors did very well to portray that they were doing something and to have it match the actions of the animation.

Haru seems to be like any other school girl, she has a crush on a guy in her class and she is quite unorganised but she has a gift that she is unaware of, she can talk to cats. When she is walking home from school with her friend she sees a cat walk past with a box in its mouth, Haru and her friend stop and watch it while it crosses a road, but as it gets to the middle of the road the traffic lights turn from red to green and a large lorry is getting closer to the cat, Haru panics then runs towards the cat and saves it from being run over. Haru is visited by the king of the Kingdom Of Cats and finds out that she saved the prince, he says that she will be rewarded for what she has done, the next day she is chased by cats, has lots of live mice in her locker at school and then gets an unexpected visit from another cat that says that Haru will marry the prince, did Haru make a big mistake by saving the cat. Haru meets old friend makes new friends and has a large mix of emotions throughout the film.

In my lead paragraph i said that I thought that the movies voice actors did very well to portray that they were doing something and to have it match the actions of the animation. In the opening sequence of the movie Haru is rushing to school and from the voice acting you could tell that even if you close your eyes and did not look at the screen.

Verdict

Overall the movie did very well to present the feelings that the director wanted to present to the audience the subtitles were easy to read and if you don’t like subtitles there is the English dub version where Haru is voice acted by Anne Hathaway.