Kiwi!

This short is 11 years old and is one of the most profound works I've ever seen. The stunning juxtaposition of sincere happiness at an achievement followed by the utter desolation of realizing the Kiwi's life goal results in his complete destruction. This momento mori crescendos in subtleties known only in masterpieces with the ease and simplicity of a cartoon. Without uttering a single line, this short transmits the full range of delight to despair within seconds.

I cannot rate this high enough.

In the time and age of cookie-cutter-CGI "comedies" featuring talking animals and supposedly cool pop culture comments, the magic of what animation can really achieve is often forgotten. Only Pixar reminds us continually of the wonderful opportunities animation has in its storytelling, both in its visuals and its characters. Yet I can think of no animation film outside of Pixar classics such as "Toy Story" 1 & 2 or "Monsters. Inc." that takes you from laughing to crying to the place in between - and in 3 minutes nonetheless.

"Kiwi!" shows how it's done. For starters, its title (and single) character is silent - no silly one-liners here. And yet, he is a fully developed character and the fact that he gets characterized simply via mimic and gestures is one of the many wonderful things the creator has achieved. We know everything we kneed to know about kiwi - his dream and what it means to him. The animation is simple but distinct. Kiwi's big expressive eyes endear him to the viewer as does his resourcefulness in his preparations. The animation's clarity adds to the overall effect and the theme music is great also.

One should not talk about details of the story for fear of spoiling the experience. Again, it's a simple one, almost fable-like. It uses its diminutive bird protagonist to say something profound about the human condition - how far one would go to achieve one's dreams. By the time a tear shows in Kiwi's eyes - there will be tears welling up in yours as well.

It might sound like hyperbole, but it really isn't. Go to YouTube and see this - it is three minutes of animation perfection.

This is really an extremely simple story. My friends posted this film on Chinese twitter and said she cried. After watching for about three minutes, I suddenly realized what my dream was. My dream has been thrown away by me for a long time. I am starting to adapt to my current lift. But as Steve Jobs mentioned, if I die tomorrow, this is not the exact job I would like to continue to do. Then I checked the World Bank Group's website and noticed the job they posted will be closed tomorrow. So I applied immediately. No matter what the result will be, I will keep my dream alive in the future and do my best to realize it.I hope everyone can find their dream deep from their heart.

This short film is deceptive on the surface. We see a cute kiwi and think we're in for something uplifting. Then it takes a drastic turn and in the space of only a short minutes we are taken on a very emotional ride.

In 1998, a beautiful CGI short called "Bunny" was made, with a beautiful message and beautiful CGI. Now, along comes "Kiwi", with the animation more simplistic, but the message still powerful.

Even though they are both very different, both "Kiwi" and "Bunny" are animated shorts to be treasured. Watch both of them, on Youtube if you can!

This animated short starts with a kiwi pulling a large rope. What on earth is he doing? Yep, I asked the same question. Just watch on and you will see. There are many surprises in store, some happy - and some not...

I love this short because it is an easy length and not too "draggy" and because of the simplistic but warming CGI, the kiwi, who is a very cute character, the theme of the short and the ending, which waters your eyes. There is a little bit of mixed humour in this as well, which is not found in "Bunny".

Another thing which fascinates me about this short is that six people are included in the credits, three who made it and three in the acknowledgements. I think it was very clever how three people made this (meanwhile the crew for "Bunny" was a huge amount - but then the CGI was more advanced, even eight years before this was made).

I recommend this to people who like kiwis, see the beauty in animation and who do not mind emotional short films too much. Enjoy "Kiwi"! :-)