Product Details

• Actors: Verónica Forqué, Peter Coyote, Victoria Abril, Àlex Casanovas, Rossy de Palma
• Directors: Pedro Almodóvar
• Format: Color, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: Spanish
• Subtitles: English
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Vidmark / Trimark
• VHS Release Date: January 1, 1998
• Run Time: 95 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 630335839X
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #22,629 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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  #10 in	Video > Spanish Language > Comedia
  #24 in	Video > Art House & International > European Cinema > Spain
  #51 in	Video > Comedy > Urban

Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

A new farrago from Pedro Almodóvar-as outrageous as his previous efforts, but without the suavity. Verónica Forqué plays Kika, a makeup artist whose life is complicated by a lesbian maid, a brooding lover, the lesbian maid's delinquent brother (who used to be a porno star), and the brooding lover's American stepfather (who may or may not be a murderer). Almodóvar shuffles them around in various combinations, but his career as a shock merchant is running out of steam; the movie feels hammy and strained, and the details are chucked in your face. Almodóvar has devised a subplot, starring Victoria Abril, which is meant to attack the emotional greed of television, but he succeeds only in drawing attention to his own failings; sensitive souls may not want to hang around to see out the prolonged rape scene. Almodóvar's palette of colors is as bright and warming as ever, but what he paints with it leaves you cold. In Spanish. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SIMPLY FASCINATING....., October 7, 2002

By	Mark Norvell (HOUSTON) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Kika (DVD)

This is my personal favorite of Almodovar's films. Those unfamiliar with Almodovar's work should take heed...this is a totally off-the-wall adult film. He is famous for pushing the boundaries of taste and outrageousness to the extreme and beyond. However, his movies entertain nonetheless. "Kika" is a cosmotologist on a quest for love and happiness. The film chronicles her (mis)adventures and encounters with all sorts of people who either don't understand her or seek to use her. She ,like Lulu in "Pandora's Box", is a free spirit adrift in a sea of miscreants. Almodovar deftly blends slapstick and drama together with his trademark color motifs, bizarre costumes (by Gaultier), over-the-top dialogue and stock cast members to enliven a fairy tale that, to me, stands unique among his other films. Of course, without Veronica Forque as Kika there would be no film. She is a total delight from start to finish and carries a difficult film soley on her bravura performance and irrepressable personality. And don't miss Victoria Abril as a reporter with an unusual way of getting the scoop on film! There is much to relish here and "Kika" can be watched again and again and still remain fresh and entertaining. A must for Almodovar fans.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars challenging every step of the way, September 24, 2000

By	A. J. Luengo Gaztelu "gora euskadi" (durango) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Kika [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Kika, surely a girl who just wants to have fun, a make up artist with little fluffy clouds for brains. She attempts to pursaude her class of student make up girls to attend to the corpse of a client's mother.

None will take the job, and the film drifts off into a tale of what happened to her when she took on the same type of task in the past. All in all not a lot to recommend it for Kika from the ensuing yarn, but a great and very dark comedy for us, which slaps you around the face like a wet fish. You'll roar with laughter at a rape scene (excuse me?)! You'll crease up at the death scenes. If hetro, you'll probably find the big blonde woman very sexy (she's a man by the way, the directors boyfriend).

Even the director's mum gets a part, and merrily announces that she's in the film because otherwise she'd never see her son (Pedro Almodovar). On the surface this film would seem to be about as unpolitically correct as any you're likely to watch, and one of its great functions is to disturb and upset the very people who should applaud it. For indeed it is a fierce commentary on the state of the media, journalism and macho sexism. Women seem to get the joke, new men cringe and look away. Buy and enjoy.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny, Erotic, & Endlessly Enjoyable, October 20, 2004

By	Varonelo (Ft Lauderdale, Florida USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kika (DVD)

I've learned to accept Almodovar as he has (ahem) matured & gotten serious. He is my favorite director so I support all his progressions. However! I'm deeply & irrevocably in love with the movie Kika, its colors, its actors, its characters, its music, its dialogue, its spell. Having watched it as much as I have, I've analyzed scenes & themes that otherwise would have escaped a one time viewing only. For example, notice how Ramon kneels in front of three women, for different purposes. First the model in the opening credits as he photographs her in bed. Next, he kneels in front of his dead mother as he opens her blouse to reveal her wound. Finally, in front of Kika as he makes love to her. The posters throughout the film hint at the action to take place in the future scenes. The dialogue is hilarious beyond belief & is not all translated or not translated acurately in the subtitles. If you are an Almodovar fan, you owe it to yourself to study Spanish & brush up on Castillian regionalisms to get the fully, mordant sinuousness of the dialogue. Kika is a black comedy & must be enjoyed as such, otherwise one would not laugh at the bizarre costumes, the multiple deaths, the rape as much-needed outlet for the retarded ex-porn star, the fickleness of love, the unfaitfulness throughout. Finally, I suspect that public taste or America's increasing discomfort with black comedy when its applied to rape, is delaying or preventing the rerelease of Kika on dvd. Its available in Brazil, but, of course not with English subtitles.