FISH have never really excited me. Unless it involves a hot pan and a wedge of lemon, I’m really not interested.
Fortunately, visionary film maker Hayao Miyazaki sees magic in even the most mundane aquatic creatures and his latest feature film from Studio Ghibli is a triumph of hand-drawn animation over CGI.
Inspired by the Hans Christian Andersen story The Little Mermaid, Miyazaki’s fairytale follows the adventures of a bolshy goldfish — Ponyo — who yearns to be a human.
When she is found by a five-year-old boy named Sosuke, a spell-binding friendship is formed, catapulting the pair on a tidal wave of adventure.
Like Miyazaki’s Oscar-winning Spirited Away, a touching story of family and friendship is played out against a backdrop of environmental concerns — in this case the desecration of the world’s oceans.
Fortunately this message is too vague to detract from the film’s central narrative which is as choppy as the sea its hero longs to see the back of.
Ponyo is relatively restrained compared with the epic story-telling of previous Ghibli animations, but the film owes its charm to this child-like simplicity.
Ponyo (U) will be in cinemas from Friday.
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