Kirikou and the Wild Beasts

Kirikou and the Wild Beasts is a French animated film in which the grandfather of Kirikou sits in his blue cave and recounts further deeds of the small boy that the earlier tale left untold. The stories follow Kirikou as he becomes a gardener, a detective, a potter, a merchant, a traveller and a doctor. When a vegetable field is ruined overnight, the villagers suspect the sorceress Karaba, but Kirikou has his own idea about what happened. Pottery provides a living for the community, a journey on a giraffe shows him the landscapes of his continent, and a sickness among the village women eventually draws him back towards Karaba.

The film is a follow-up to Kirikou and the Sorceress rather than a direct continuation, set while Kirikou is still a child and Karaba still a sorceress. Michel Ocelot directed it with Bénédicte Galup, who had worked with him as an animator; it was Ocelot's second feature as director, after Kirikou and the Sorceress and before Azur & Asmar. Philippe Andrieu, Galup and Marie Locatelli wrote the screenplay, and Didier Brunner produced. Pierre-Ndoffé Sarr, Awa Sène Sarr and Robert Liensol lead the voice cast, with Marie-Philomène Nga, Emile Abossolo M'bo and Pascal N'Zonzi.

The film runs seventy-five minutes and drew 6.6 out of 10 from roughly two thousand votes on IMDb, and the same average from about 350 votes on TMDB, indicating a modest but steady level of approval from those who watched it.