Customer Reviews

Kite [VHS]

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Okay, I saw Kite (Ki-tay) a couple years ago. Me and a friend rented it from Block Butser, this was the (Cut version), we both liked it. Returned it, and forgot about it for a couple years.

So, I decided this year that it was good enough to add to my collection. I had my mom call Fry's Electronics to see if they carried it. They did, she asked what section it was in, the guy said in the adult.

She gave me weird looks the whole night, but I assured her that it was adult because of sever violence and gore. After she had bought it for me, I noticed the cover changed.

"Kite Summery"

The uncut version was filled with extreme sexual/rape scenes, and disturbing content. The violence didn't bother me, but all the child molestation scenes were too much. (If you are not bothered by graphic sexual/rape situations then go ahead and by it, otherwise, 21 and up.)

Besides that, the animation was beautiful. The voices very well done, giving emotion to the characters. And made you believe you were there inside the movie.

I have seen the original Japanese uncut version, which, since it's from Japan, contains much more sexual and gore content.

But don't be confused. This is not some cheap porno cartoon. The movie itself has a very twisted, but deep and many sad parts. The creator here has a movie that will really intrigue you as you watch this movie.

It's much deeper than an action movie. Tons of human emotions are involved.

Highly recommended for Anime Fans who are Adults. It's not appropriate for children.

I've only been watching anime for close to 5 months, yet I've tried to drown myself in the classics. Kite is the kind of japanimation that makes you realize how truly deep this film genre goes. While the version sold here is only 45 minutes long, I must use the old adage "Quality not quantity." With extreme twists in storyline and incredible imaging, Kite is the kind of film that makes you want to have only more of it. As with any reasonably good anime, the story, while short, causes you to spend a fair amount of time reviewing the story in your mind and the messages laid within it. I must warn future Kite viewers though, that if you're looking to watch an up beat happy ending, humourous saturday morning type of anime, this is not that kind of film. Rather the movie leaves you feeling a bit depleted in spirit. Also you're kind of left hanging, which, I suppose is part of the reason why Kite is such an excellent anime.

--Also, if you watch the film "Mezzoforte" you can catch a glimpse of Sawa (the main character in Kite) passing by in the street.

[Cut version]

The cut version of this anime is decent... the plot is kind of interested, a molested girl, school girl by day killer at night with some kick butt action sequences and supurb animation.

I suppose one of a few of the major flaws in the production would be the bad guys... they aren't really all that interesting; neither is the technological aspects of this assassin group, so much so they don't really earn the title of "assassin" group in my mind and instead seem like low budget killers. And yet Sawa defies this, she downright rocks as does Obari,

The cut version of this film is interesting if you like films like The Professional and the like and is most certainly worth the rent - if you can get it for a decent price, it might just be worth buying as well (I found myself heavily enthralled with the concepts though the delivery, again, was poor especially with silly enemies... the story is really about the main characters).

The rating I gave this film is for the uncut version because that is the version that was intended to be released - the cut version was meant for clean sales on sites like these selling anime movies as well as to the general (mature) public. The uncut is the film the way it was meant to be... for good or ill.

[Uncut version]

As I said earlier, the story is about the main characters and if you are going to appreciate Kite in all of its magnificent (or cruel) glory, then this is the version I must recommend you buy OVER the cut version.

If you like Hentai you might be slightly disappointed to know that there isn't much sex in this film: however if you are more interested in a good story mixed with some sex scenes, this is perfect.

Sure people complain left and right about the child molestation, but the truth is that theme is high in hardcore ecchi productions like Cool Devices and the like... so most people getting into the movie will likely be informed H-viewers who decided to see the film for similar reasons. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing that it's disgusting, but proper viewing of this film requires you to experience it with the molestation attached.

Thankfully the ecchi level of the film isn't high - they are standard vaginal rape scenes with a bit of fellatio mixed in - of course they are scenes involve underage individuals. For those of you who do watch such films of the genre you'll know this isn't exactly "ecchi high" as far as Hentai goes, and here serves only to enhance the story... again, for good or bad (after all Princess 69 of the genre disturbingly features extremely young girls doing a myriad of disgusting things - believe me, for a film categorized in the same genre, this is a masterpiece as far as they are concerned).

Upon watching the uncut version of the film (having some experience watching Hentai in the past), I was deeply impressed with the amount of story attached to the movie. Typically in these types of films you very rarely see a good story, or characters you can really love.

The story is about a child who was taken from her mother and father, raped, and then forced into a life of an assassin (whereby she is raped repeatedly and seemingly cares little for it). As time passes she opens up to another character - Obari - and tells him how her philosophy is to live life for the moment and care little about the future (since of course has no control over her future... ironically as the vivid rape scenes depict, she has little control over the present either).

There are a few things with this uncut version which annoyed me. Since most of the individuals purchasing the uncut version of the film wanted to purchase a Hentai film, Sawa is depicted at times as enjoying the sex... certainly in the beginning, that to me doesn't flow with the fact that she was being forced into living a life she couldn't control. However it does make some sense, she isn't smiling at all... in fact, she does very little smiling, she's simply letting it happen, moaning. To me, her passive enjoyment and lack of emotions throughout the first half of the movie (before she speaks with Obari) strikes me as sad: if it wasn't stressed to produce a Hentai film that Hentai fans would love so much, perhaps then would could have seen more of her emotions early on. Just a theory though.

[General notes]

The music throughout the film is superb - jazz music lights the mood as neither happy nor sad, and does well to (as strange as it may sound) set the film up for future viewing by generations to come (the music is timeless so to speak, good and timeless).

The film is a good one, but it isn't great, again there could have been a lot more... I half hoped for the film to go on an extra hour so I could see Sawa slaughter a few more "targets" with her exploding gun. But in the end the film left on a rather unfinished note.

One last pro was the fact that the movie, although leaving on an unfinished note, had the viewer emotionally hooked (especially in the uncut version) - without a solid chain of events within the story (such as better "bad guy" killings and the like), it came across as surprising how well the director established emotional bonds throughout the film.

This film scores a 4/5 for having its main plot device (an assassin hired to kill individuals) only half developed in my opinion, more effort could have been made to make it more interesting. Good stuff though!

"Kite" has been one of the hardest movies to find uncut for a long time, and for good reason. "Kite" has scenes of very graphic rape and raw violence and gore. But none of it is gratuitous, it all adds to the amazing story.

"Kite" brings to mind the movie "The Professional," but with a bit of a twist. In "The Professional," a young girl's family is killed and a kind assasin takes her in and teaches her the way of the hired hitman. In "Kite," Sawa's parents are murdered and she is taken in by the man who killed them, he forces her to become an assassin for her and also his sexual slave. Sawa is connected to him by dependence and hate. When she meets a fellow orphan and assassin, the handsome and destructive Oburi, she is given another path.

"Kite" is not for the squeamish or faint of heart. The killings in the film are treated with such nonchalance that it affects you all the more. You are instantly attached to Sawa, despite her unblinking view of murder. "Kite" definitely has heartfelt moments in it too. The calm innocence Sawa and Oburi share together keeps you close to the characters.

I gave this movie a 4 star rating, only because this is the edited version. The uncut version of "Kite" is available now. You can buy it on animecastle.com, and I would definitely recommend the uncut over the cut.

After watching this new version of Kite my first impression toward it was of admiration and atonishment.I saw the heavy edited version and it was an strong anime but too short.This LESS EDITED version of Kite is absolutedly different and even though it's for a more mature audience only it doesn't mean it's an anime that doesn't deserves to be recognize.People should know that this new DVD is still edited due to some graphic ..scenes involving child ponography.Some scenes are still missing but it doesn't make a big difference.Adding more scenes to the movie helped us understand more from it,the control Akai had over Sawa.Even though it's more like a "Hentai" anime and the violence is overused Kite managed to get the attention of fans once again.It's an anime with a beautiful and smooth animation and character desings.The story does develops very fast which makes it interesting to watch.The violence scenes are a little strong and bloody,not many people will feel very confortable watching it.The voices(Although I prefer watching the Japanese version)are cool.The actors did made a good job here.Some viewersI repeat,might not feel very confortable watching this anime even if you watched the edited version this one is twice strong.

Ok, there's about 3 different US versions out there and 2 japanese version as well. Interesting enough the 2 part OVA series in japan contains rape scenes and objectional scenes of Sowa as a little (7-12yrs old) girl being seduced by Mr. Akai. So this series is not for the light hearted, considering theres alot of un-remorseful violence and other objectional material. In light of all this the DVD version and a VHS version (brought to the US by a company called MediaBlaster) have cut out a lot of stuff, mainly the acts of rape and the little girl scenes. There is one US VHS version by Kittymedia (mediablaster's dirty subsidiary) that releases a version that contains everything except the little girlie scenes(due to the US's child porn laws).

Anyhow, some people say this distracts from the creators original intent to build up the characters. Thats a big load of whatever, this "Movie/Series" is only 45 minutes and moves at the speed of light. Character development is a consideration if this thing would of been 2 hours long, but the fact remains you know enough about the characters to just understand how they feel and what the movies about. Basically this movie has no filler what-so-ever. Its just a killer movie(literally) thats fun to watch and enjoy. Oh yeah, the ending is very very unique.

So don't waste your time finding the right unedited version, I own both the edited DVD and the Kittymedia VHS version, the rape scenes are distracting and so out of place that it actually pulls attention from the awesome action sequences in this movie. If you want a porno, get a porno, if you want one heck of a cool anime, get Kite on DVD.

I'm so tired of hearing bad things about this anime, like bad character developement, bad story, too violent, hentai, whatever.
This story is really not as straiforward as it seems, why else would the ending be so confusing to some. In my opinion there is also a lot of character devepement. Sawa was young and terrified when her parents were killed. The detective guy raped her at this time when she was most vulnerable and took her in. We know he then trained her to be a killer but I believe the anime does a wonderful job explaining how she succumbed to it.
It actually reminds me of that old South Park episode where the volcano erupted while Stan's uncle Jim was taking the kids hunting. When it was Stan's turn to shoot, he aimed at the rabbit and then was like, "I don't want to kill the bunny" and it escaped and everyone got angry. At the end he finally ends up killing something for the sake of being accepted even though it was against his nature.
Sawa is the same. Her face is always sad and she doen't like what she is doing. She's young and impressionable and doesn't have the mental strenth and confidence to get away. This is why I find the story so touching. It's really very sad.
Oh yeah and about the violence, Maybe it is a little
excessive but I thought the fight seens were absolutely awesome. I mean, a lot of anime is violent with teh whole neon pink blood thing happening so what's the problem?
The sex though is a bit extreme. In a way, it better explains Sawa's situation and how she came to be tied to that detective guy. She doesn't have the strength to fight it (mentally that is since it is sooo obvious she's a great assasin). If u're that offended by graphic sex (there is a lot) then just watch the edited version. I didn't think it was all that bad. Actually the sex was almost what probably what made so many women not like the movie so the edited version is better for us females. Guys i'm sure don't mind so PLEASE see this movie with an open mind and actually listen to everything they say.
THIS IS A GOOD MOVIE!!

"Kite: Director's Cut" is an emotionless anime....or maybe that's the way the director intended it to be. I read the reviews of the other version, and how violent this anime is....so I decided to check it out. I wasn't THAT impressed. This is not to say that I didn't enjoy it; I just wish it could have been a bit longer. As far as the violence; "Fist Of The North Star" was FAR more violent!!

The storyline goes as this: Sawa, a college student, is an assassin...Le Femme Nikita-style. Her parents were killed, and she was adopted by Mr. Akai, who's a police investigator. Sawa is actually trained by Mr. Akai to whip out the scums who have slipped through the system.

This is basically the plot in a nutshell. I don't wanna give anything away for those who haven't seen it yet. I actually recommend renting this or borrowing it from a friend before purchasing it.

I really enjoyed the movie Kite. The story is the most compelling element of the film.It's about a young girl who's taken in by a crooked police officer who trains her to be an assassin. The action sequences are simply breath taking. Some might call the movie "violent" but that's the real atention graber. It's not senseless violence, it all a vivid display of action that truly keeps the story moving and keep your eyes wanting more.

...some parts I rewinded 3 or 4 times just to see it again...you must add this one to your collection.. you won't be sorry.