Product Details

• Actors: Marina Inoue, Rikiya Koyama, Mugihito
• Directors: Yasuomi Umetsu
• Format: Color, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: ANIME WORKS
• DVD Release Date: March 25, 2008
• Run Time: 57 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0011NVC84
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #140,485 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

KITE LIBERATOR - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Poor seqeul with no ending, April 1, 2008

By 

aaron268 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kite Liberator (DVD)

Being a big Fan of the Original Kite Anime I got excited when I saw this had come out, and ordered it immediately. I hoped this one would be nearly as good. It is not, in fact its not even close, and has no resemblance to the Atmosphere and story of the first Kite. The Main character from the first Kite is not in this movie. Instead there is a brief mention of her disappearance along with the person who made her gun and that's all you get of the story of the first Kite. In fact the only minor resemblance to the original Kite is the new girl "Monaka" looks like Sawa, and uses the same gun, but that's about it. The new Kite girl "Monaka" You hardly get to see any of in action the first 30 + minutes since it is mostly subterfuge side stories about her father who is an astronaut, her going to school, and her friend that works at the same restaurant as her. You only get to see a couple of brief moments of her in action. The disjointed side stories don't have anything to do with the original "Kite" story or Mythology, are boring soap opera subterfuge, and you begin to wonder if you are even watching a "Kite" movie, and they sent you some soap opera drama Anime by accident. You never find out why that new girl Monaka is doing what she is doing. Is she a rogue vigilante? Does she work for some Agency? Is she an assassin for hire? It seems to be a guessing game. Not only is there hardly any of the dark edgy action or atmosphere from the Original "Kite" its mostly boring subterfuge drama. then to make matters worse the father of the new girl Monaka ends up becoming some mutated space monster that comes back to earth and wreaks havoc(yeah like we have never seen that in an Anime before), this is just some sad re-hashed anime story of old we have seem time and time again in Anime's for decades, what its doing in a so called "Kite" movie makes no sense at all. I guess they ran out of stuff to write and threw in some old has been crap to fill in space. The Law Enforcement apparently hire the new Kite girl Monaka they now call the "Angel of Death" to help dispatch the Mutant Space Monster, she temporarily stops the monster, and then finds out its actually her father. Her now Mutant Space Monster Father re-generates and is again on the loose, they run into each other again, exchange looks, and just when you expect the story to continue the credits start rolling at 50 minutes in, and the Movie is over. It's as if they decided this anime was so Bad they just pulled the plugged, there is no ending.

If you liked the original Kite DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS DVD.

Yasuomi Umestu's Original Kite, and Mezzo Forte are among my all time Favorite Anime's. Something about Kite Liberator went horribly wrong and will end up on the shelf of my local DVD trader. I'm feeling like this was a cash cow exploit to just make some money of the name of the firt Kite Anime. Extremely disappointing, the cardboard box sleaved that the DVD case comes in, is actually better than the DVD. If you didn't like the first Kite, and you like people fighint weird space monsters that has no ending you might like this

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Okay film, but a step down for Umetsu, August 12, 2009

By 

Atomic Grrrrrl (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kite Liberator (DVD)

I love Umetsu, who I think is one of the best anime directors of all time. Not only are his films beautifully animated, they're highly unconventional, gritty, adult, and feature some of the most wonderfully choreographed action scenes I've ever seen in either a live or animated feature film. Some people have compared his style to Tarantino; I think that's an accurate comparison. When it comes to directors, he's definitely a maverick who flouts convention.

When I heard he'd made a sequel to Kite, I couldn't have been more excited to indulge in more of Umetsu's style. So imagine my disappointment when I saw Kite Liberator. Before I criticize, let me say what was good about it. As usual, the artwork was gorgeous and there was a sophisticated look to the film due to its muted palette. So it's definitely a visual feast for the eyes. Also, some of the CGI (some, being the operative word) is nothing short of breathtaking.

But for all its aesthetic strengths, Liberator suffers from a few problems. First of all, although it's called a "sequel", Liberator is really an entirely different story from the first Kite, so there's very little to connect the two other than one character mentioning that the two characters from the first film disappeared. If you were left hanging in Kite and are just chomping at the bit to get this "sequel" to find out what happened, you're in for a major disappointment.

Secondly, the story is terribly predictable and conventional-- halfway into it you already know where it's going, so there are none of the clever surprising twists and turns of either Mezzo Forte or Kite.

Thirdly, Monaka is not really an intriguing character in spite of her double life. When she's not being a killer, her "Clark Kent" personality is the standard nerdy, shy, fish out of water character you often see in children's anime -- you know, the cutesy kid who acts like a clutz, blushes when near the opposite sex, and is incompetent at school or work. You've seen that character a million times in anime-- Negi Springfield is a prototype comes to mind-- and she is interchangeable with all of them.

Fourth, a lot of the character design is oddly conventional. If you're familiar with Umetsu's work you know that there's a particular "look" he has in the way he draws his characters, especially the women. The character designs for the men are once again top notch (especially the manager of the greasy spoon), but this time around Monaka and the other females are standard designs.

Fifth, the CGI is all over the place. In the opening scenes of the space station, it's really incredible. But in some of the action scenes in the beginning it looks just plain sloppy.

Last but not least, it seems as if the heart and soul of Umetsu's gritty, edgy, signature style has almost all but disappeared. The unconventionality is gone, the grit is gone, the "underground" feel is gone. There's violence, but were it not for those bloody scenes, this film could easily be mistaken for a sentimental, mainstream kiddy flick about a girl reuniting with her father. Just have Manako bloodlesly dispense with enemies using magic powers and it would've made no difference. It's almost as if Umetsu was torn between making a cloying Hayao Miyazaki-type film or another gritty film like Kite, so he just decided to do both.

The funny thing about Kite Liberator is that it's not that bad a movie. If it were done by any other director, I would've even given it an extra star. But because it's from Umetsu, it's really a step down for him. I would definitely rent it for the gorgeous animation and curiosity factor. But if you buy it hoping to get "more of the same" of Kite or Mezzo Forte you'll feel disappointment at best and cheated at worst.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Ever the Poorest of Sequels, July 15, 2010

By 

Wallace Jackson - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Kite Liberator (DVD)

The original Kite was a hard-hitting, grungy, gutsy psycho-drama. Each of its characters (despicable though many of them were) had their own motivations, and psychological reasons for doing what they did. The art was wonderfully rendered and the voice acting (both English and Japanese) were well done. In short, it was so good that it became one of my favourite movies - and so dark that I don't watch it with polite company.
Kite Liberator, on the other hand, looks like it was entirely animated by the in-betweeners. Where the original was a street-level tale about an unwilling hitwoman, with hints of greater drama behind the scenes; Liberator is a four-colour tale about space invaders, with no moral ambiguity, motivation or deeper emotions. Frankly, it reminds me of the badly translated anime fare that used to show up on late night television.
If you're looking for a reminder of bad 80's anime (in the ilk of 8 Man, Genocyber and some of the worse episodes of Crying Freeman), Kite Liberator might be worth a look. Personally, I've only watched it twice since I bought the disc a year ago. The second time, I gave it another chance, just to see if it was as awful as it seemed the first time through... It was.