Kite

Rating:
Summary: A hentai flick that wants to be an action film...
Review: ...Or maybe it's an action film that wants to be a hentai flick. Either way, it doesn't quite help the overall presentation of Yasuomi Umetsu's "Kite" that it doesn't even know what it wants itself to be. Personally, I'm betting on my first theory, since it should be noted that "Kite" is brought to you by the same person who created quality (scoffs) hentai series like "Cool Devices" and "Mezzo Forte".

"Kite" is the story of Sawa, a girl who inexplicably does things for 45 minutes which more often than not end up in drowning the screen in globs of red paint and vomit (No kidding, Mr. Umetsu seems to have a fetish for the stuff, feeling the need to include it in a scene every 10 minutes). You see, her parents were brutally murdered when she was a young girl, and like any loving daughter would do, she had earrings made filled with their blood (I am honestly not joking here). She also moved in with Kanae, a pedophilic police chief who runs a contract killing service on the side.

It gets worse, both for her, and for us as the viewers who have to endure this test of patience. Being the bastardized version of La Femme Nikita that "Kite" is, you probably guessed that she was drawn into the life of being a contract killer. What you probably did not guess is that she carries out her assignments using a gun which shoots exploding bullets at people whose entire body cavities consist of nothing but buckets of bright-red blood. Umetsu doesn't even bother attempting to explain any of this to us, other than in the enlightened comment Kanae makes, "Hmm, the killer must have been using a special type of gun." You certainly shouldn't expect to see Jerry Orbach appearing on your TV set, anyway, explaining the workings of mercury fulminate-tipped bullets or any other _sane_ explanation for exploding ammunition.

We're then introduced to roughly half a dozen other characters. Sawa's love interest in "Kite" is Oburi, another cold-blooded teenage killer who we learn basically nothing about throughout the entire story. What's even sadder is that Oburi is just about the most dynamic character to be seen in "Kite," certainly moreso than Sawa, whose idea of character development is telling us "I like teeeeeeeeeaaaaaa... Stroooooong greeeeeeen teaaaaaa."

All the twists and turns in the plot seem like nothing more than excuses for outrageous action (or hentai) sequences. The one that takes the cake in my book is when Sawa falls a total of roughly 20 stories, AND SURVIVES (with no injuries a few bandages can't fix) by using her victim's body to cushion the fall. It's scenes like this which take moments where you're just about to enjoy the movie and make you break out in laughter over the absurdity of it all.

It should also be noted that the title-character, the kite, is nowhere to be found. This is a shame, since I'm sure it would be far more interesting and exciting than any of the 45 minutes this movie encompasses... Or maybe it's a message to us all that if sociopathic child molestors like Kanae went kite-flying more often when they were children, they wouldn't turn out to be the way are... Or MAYBE it's just trying to tell us that going kite-flying is a much better use of your time than watching this awful movie. Now that's symbolism in Kite I can appreciate. And if you're smart, you should, too.

Rating:
Summary: very good, obviously edited
Review: I LOVE this anime. It is a really good story line, yet it is obviously edited from the original Japanese version. Very good to get the idea of the story, with some pretty good violence left in, but wait for the hentai version. There are some scenes that hint at some good stuff taken out.

Rating:
Summary: Can the action sequences SAVE it??
Review: There are so many movies out there that have the POTENTIAL of being so much better... I think this is NOT one of them, though it may have seemed to in the opening scene (the emotionless girl wasting someone with her handy hand-gun, hops off a building rooftop into the mist of the city in an almost graceful, superhero fashion). However, the end result of this film is an edited sex movie that has a bunch of extremely violent scenes linked together by what? I'm not sure, but the numbness of the characters pretty much coincides with the numbness of the viewer. Though I did enjoy the gun-to-gun combat (vs. hand-to-hand) scene in the subway near the end (almost like The Matrix, but more over-the-top), it's not worth it to keep... I sold this one after buying it... you decide. If you want bloody action for the sake of cool bloody action, ok, you've got it.

Rating:
Summary: absolutely gorgeous. but...
Review: like the title says, it is a visual feast, granted you are looking at still frames. colors are absolutely vivid, and, of course, the level of violence fulfills one of the Laws of Anime (that anime characters have 6-8 gallons of blood). note: while it is violent, it's not the brutal, horror violence of Ninja Scroll. it's more unrealistic, shock-value bloody goodness.

when there is action, it is animated quite smoothly, but, i'm assuming that the production company (Green Bunny?) is used to Mature titles (on, say, the adult side, or late-night trashy dramas) as EVERYTHING in between high action sequences are painfully free of motion or so simplistic it can hurt to watch it.

the only further suggestion i'd make is to wait for the uncut version, only for the fact that buying into an item that says nothing about being "cut"/edited can only encourage north american licensors to take the path of least resistance by quietly snipping content they think might be controversial or some other political tripe such as that...

Rating:
Summary: KITE KICKS!!!
Review: Kite was an astonishing movie. I was highly impressed with the action, as well as the art. I can say that the shortness of the movie left me wanting more. Overall if you could say that anything really needed to be changed, it was the lack of character development. I still say go for it and get the movie.You will not be disapointed.

Rating:
Summary: "Contains graphic violence": they weren't kidding
Review: If you like extreme graphic violence (a la Ninja Scroll, etc), then you'll want to watch this one. No doubt about it.

But the storyline of the anime left me unsatisfied in many respects.

For one thing, the main character Sawa is working as a vigilante assassin under Akai's command, but she doesn't like it. So my question is, why the heck doesn't she just quit??? I mean, considering the stuff she has to endure and the stuff she knows, I don't know what binds Sawa to Mr. Akai to do his bidding.

Secondly, the anime seems heavily edited (i.e. censored). There are several occassions where the screen simply goes into a freeze-frame for several seconds (complete with the tell-tale screen jitter). Other reviewers here wrote that these cut scenes involve VERY explicit sex scenes, some involving Sawa. Since Sawa is a high-school girl (just look at her school uniform), not a college girl like the DVD says, cutting away those scenes probably meant cutting away "graphic sex with a minor" element, a definite no-no in American marketing point of view.

So it's understandable, but I don't really like it. Perhaps those missing scenes would have shed a better light on Sawa's character. Maybe it'll have shown Sawa's submissive side to Akai, explaining my aforementioned question of "why doesn't she just quit?" Who knows.

All in all, it's a nice anime. The animation quality is just mediocre, but the music is quite nice, and overall the anime has a nice "feel" to it. Many of the action sequences (and the violence therein) are utterly cool, and I loved the ending. Unexpected, but fitting.

Being something of a purist myself, however, I can't help but wish that the totally uncut version was on the DVD. It's frustrating to know that you're not being given the whole picture, you know?

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Anime
Review: Everything in this is perfect. The characters, the storyline, the violence. Exploding bullets... gotta love them. The animation is the most beautiful I've seen in any anime. The dub-over voices aren't the same old voices used in every other anime ever dubbed and the dub overs are very good, but the sub-titled is better. The cover art is so beautiful I want to lick it. The action is so intense I forget to breathe.

I have a feeling this version might be cut... but I'm not sure. And Don't be misguided by the film's unusually short legenth. Getting anime based on legenth is a HORRIBLE idea.

Movie Totals:

Breast Shots - 1

Panty Shots - Didn't count but there's a really good one on the cover

Sex Scenes - 2

Heads Exploded - 5

Number of times I blinked while watching this movie - 0

Rating:
Summary: Bloody
Review: Last night i sat through kite. I was not overly impressed with the production of the DVD itself. For a recently new production, i felt they could have done more with the special features aspect of the DVD.

Well, I really liked Kite. Perhaps i liked it right away because I really enjoyed Le Femme Nikkita (french version) and loved "Leon, the Professional." Extreme Graphic Violence is right!! I was dying to know what that meant, considering I had seen "Ninja Scroll" with only a "Graphic Violence" warning. Because of the Bilingual feature available to the DVD, I chose to watch it dubbed in english. The artwork is really different from what i am used to, but became really enjoyable after about 10 minutes. The English Voice Acting is nothing to shake an award at however.

For something i expected to be predictable from the start, "Kite" does an excellent job of confusing and misleading the viewer. I really should watch it again in Japanese before i write a fair opinion for "Kite," after all, it is only 45 minutes !!

I did not mind watching a censored version of this film at all. I don't mind sex and nudity in a film, but adolescant rape scenes don't interest me one bit. I just wish that if they were to edit out that much film, that a new release would have contained other scenes to lengthen it out a little bit. I guess if you watch it in english, and then immediatley in japanese, you have yourself a 90 minute full length feature

Without a doubt, this is an Adult oriented anime. Be it do to the very brief nudity, sexual undertones, and very graphic violence, this is not a toy for the kiddies. I do appreciate the idea of Anime for adults, and this was done very well.

very good

Rating:
Summary: Not too good
Review: While i like the visual action and scenes, the movie lacked any real plot or story, had weak intros to how it worked, took me half the movie to figure out exactly what was going on, might be more enjoyable once you've seen it once and understand it, but first time through its a weak story movie.

Thought it might be interesting but dont think [price](at the time of this review to buy on DVD) was well worth it.

Rating:
Summary: Bad story with Ultra-Violence, but a Good ending
Review: I must say this is one of the baddest (as in not good) Animes I've purchased. While attempting to be dark, gritty and disturbing it goes overboard with extremely violent violence and pedophilla innuendoes (though she is an 'Adult' in the US version, not so in the original - seen 3 or 4 versions of Kite). The only good thing I can say about Kite is the Ambiguousness of ending from just before the grocery bag scene to the cats and then the credits. Rent it before you decide to buy just so you know what your getting. I don't recommend this Anime for anyone... it's just too excessively over the top violent with not much else to justify its existence.