User Reviews

This is a very clever Pathe film made in 1907. It was made to compete with the trick films of Georges Melies, and in some ways it shows an imagination lacking from Melies effects-heavy extravaganzas.

What we have here is a group of acrobats - men, women and children - made up to look Japanese. They run onto a mostly black stage, take a bow and then proceed to perform a number of acrobatic feats of strength and balance that appear to defy gravity. Of course all is not what it seems: the acrobats are actually lying on the floor, so that little six year old kid isn't actually holding up the rest of the troupe on his shoulders as you might first think.

It's all very cleverly done, and even though it's a trick film, it still requires a measure of dexterity and skill on the part of the performers. They even wobble slightly at times to give the impression they're working under strain!

Before I watched this trick film by Segundo do Chomon on the "Saved from the Flames" DVD collection, I did read some of the comments presented here so I knew about the floor-disguised-as-wall illusion. Still, it's quite impressive to see these children and adults giving the impression they're doing unusual acrobatics in front of an audience supposedly watching this in a theater. The stencil-colors looked pretty good as well. I also learned from the other comments that these were Caucasians made up to look Japanese which I wouldn't have noticed by myself. So, no, I didn't find the characterizations to be offensive since it's just them doing "acrobatics". So on that note, I recommend Kiriki, Japanese Acrobats.

I viewed a print of this short movie courtesy of Lobster Films, Paris. Here we have a French 'trick' film by the Pathe Brothers, from the same period in which Georges Melies was making his very popular trick movies. However, in Melies's films the trickery was accomplished by jump cuts, and spectacle was provided by elaborate sets and audacious story lines. In 'The Kiriki, Japanese Acrobats', we have a fairly straightforward acrobatic performance, abetted by some trickery that is far simpler than Melies's box of tricks, yet no less satisfying.

We see some men, women and children in gymnastic clothing, clearly Caucasian yet made up to look vaguely Oriental, with ridiculously built-up foreheads covered by ludicrous hairstyles. The women creep back and forth in that ridiculous shuffling gait (move the feet very quickly but in very tiny steps) that western performers affect to simulate Orientals. I realise that, in the first decade of the twentieth century, the most proficient acrobatic troupes were nearly all Japanese ... but frankly, this ying-tong Japanoiserie did absolutely nothing to add to the proceedings, and should have been dispensed with.

In small groups, the troupe rapidly execute a series of acrobatic manoeuvres which are so dazzling that they seem nearly superhuman. There is, of course, a trick: a deceptively simple one, yet done so skilfully that some viewers may have difficulty figuring it out.

TRICK EXPLAINED NOW. Except for some 'book-end' footage at the beginning and the end, which is shot conventionally, the entire movie is filmed with an overhead camera shooting STRAIGHT DOWN onto a black velvet dropcloth surrounded by four upright walls. The actors, lying on this surface, affect postures to indicate that they are standing upright, with one of the walls being treated as a horizontal floor. When the tumblers move 'upwards', supposedly defying gravity, they are in fact merely moving horizontally, away from the wall representing the 'floor' and towards the opposite wall representing the 'ceiling'. The lighting, from directly above, eliminates side shadows and makes the trickery less obvious.

The trick is made more difficult to spot because the stunts are done quickly and proficiently, and the performers demonstrate some genuine agility. To call this a 'trick' film is slightly demeaning to their efforts, since there is some genuine acrobatic work going on here: just not in the direction that it seems to be.

I was amused and impressed by this movie, but I would have enjoyed it far more without the utterly unnecessary racial stereotyping. My rating for this one: 6 out of 10.

Yes, already over a hundred years ago people very pretty elastic already it seems. The director here is Segundo de Chomón, one of the most influential silent filmmakers, maybe number 2 behind Méliès. Basically we watch a group of Japanese artists/athletes perform for 3 minutes. On the Youtube version I watched there is some Asian music played at the same time which makes this even more fun to watch. Of course, originally its is a silent film. The highlight here are certainly the colors, not only the ones of the people but also for example the flowers in the top corners. It all had an aura of lotus blossom to it. I guess it was not as common back in the early 20th century to go to the circus, so thumbs up for the filmmaker bringing the show to the masses with the help of this new medium film. Then again, it was not completely new in 1907, but still fairly new. For de Chomòn it's one of his more known films and he made this one basically in the middle of his career. He was really prolific between 1902 and 1913 and made over 200 films in that period. The key to enjoying this one here is to keep in mind when it was made. If it had been done today, I would probably only give it 4 stars max, but taking the year into consideration I will be a bit more generous.

This film, "Kiri-Kis", by Segundo de Chomón, was included in the three DVD set "Saved From the Flames"--a collection of mostly ephemeral movies that have managed to avoid turning to powder, catching fire or melting--something that usually happened with the nitrate film stock used up through the 1950s.

Unlike most of the other 54 films from the set, this one is actually a fragment--or at least it was. I was impressed by the conservators that took a fragment of the original hand-colored film and re-created the entire film by using a black & white copy and coloring to match the original fragment! Bless these folks for going to all this trouble! The film consists of French folks dressed up as Japanese acrobats--complete with skin-wigs and a Japanese topknot hairstyle. When they appear on stage, they do lots of impossible acrobatics--all apparently done by actually filming the actors on their backs and the camera suspended above them! This is amazing film work for 1907 and it is well worth your time.