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The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

This very short animation piece by writer-director Dony Permedi is quite a thing of beauty. Probably one of my absolute favorite films with a running time of 3 minutes. It really doesn't get better for such a running time. The first minute you may probably ask yourself what is going on exactly until you finally realize what the little kiwi is up to with all his crafting.The flying sequence is nothing short of brilliant and delivers on all levels emotionally, especially when we see the shutting of the eyes and the tear of joy in the corner of the bird's eye. He has paid and will pay a huge prize, but it's his lifelong dream coming true. I had one as well and after seeing this early effort from Permedi, it's quite a shame that, seven years later, he hasn't directed any other movie. From the merely technical perspective, this film is also a great example how much of an effect a simple 90°-camera turn can have. He seems to have great touch and with the quality of animation these days, it's always the story and emotional impact thereof that makes the movie. I'm sure this man could bring both to the table.

I like a lot to see animated shorts. For me, most of those shorts are way more creative and inspiring than most of the movies from the recent years, having also more artistic value than many so-called "masterpieces". Sadly, most of those shorts are quite underrated on IMDb. For some reason, even the shorts with a high visual quality and captivating stories tend to have a relatively low (or just average) score on this website, and I simply don't know why. However, and sadly, this is not of those underrated shorts. In fact, I will dare to say that this is something quite overrated.I honestly don't know what is the big deal about this. Sure, there is a somewhat clever plot twist at the end, but besides of that, there isn't anything remarkable about this. And the plot twist at the end (Where the titular character commits suicide at the end in order to achieve his dream to fly) isn't really that clever. I am not sure if that was supposed to be some kind of dark joke, or something emotional, but either way, it didn't work for me. I personally see it from a dramatic perspective, but it didn't have very much emotional impact on me. Additionally, this short doesn't have a very good animation quality. Despite being made in the year 2006, the CGI from "Kiwi!" looks like something from the late nineties and visually it isn't very creative. I 've seen many other animated films and shorts which despite having a low budget, use their resources in a very creative manner, sometimes with very beautiful results, but "Kiwi!" doesn't even seems to be trying to be something more than generic in that aspect.In my opinion, "Kiwi!" along with "Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty" and "Oktapodi" is one of the most overrated short animations ever made. There are many, many animated shorts which are much better than this one (Not only in what concerns to the visual aspect, but also narratively speaking, having also much more meaningful messages and much more emotional impact than "Kiwi!"Just to name a few: "The Little Matchgirl" Disney short from the year 2006, "Madame Tutli-Putli", "Street of Crocodiles", all the shorts directed by Aleksandr Petrov, "The External World", "Please Say Something", "The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello", "Paths of Hate", "Pas à deux" from Gerrit van Dijk, "Love and War", "Adam and Dog", any of the PES shorts...And sadly, most of them have less score on IMDb than this.

just awesome!! It's been a while since I've encountered something a marvellous animation-short, that tells such a great story in just a couple of minutes. It has all the elements which made this sweet little KIWI touched so many people: Humor and drama and everything in between. I started off screaming from laughter by the way he (she?) moved and its persistence in the undertaking of this enormous task (!), but was also choked by the drama which evolved, and the inescapable ending that was (wisely enough not graphically exploited), the distant sound of KIWI hitting the ground was chilling and heartbreaking and truly had an impact. But hey... I'm one who have always cried and laughed at animation movies since way back in 1953, when I was 3. And still I enjoy this art after 55 years and will, till the day I die probably.Let's hope the talent of this guy will be recognized and that he will be given the chance to make more movies that really tell a story and move people all over the world. He deserves this BIG TIME. I only saw this movie for the 1st time a couple of days back (June 06, 2008) and it had by then been viewed over 17.5 million times at Youtube. That's a lot of THUMBS UP and one heck of a standing ovation!

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.