 |
| 8. Q
 
18 and over for sex, and violence. That alone should warrant
this anime at least 4 stars. That said...
Kite is in my opinion,
more realistic in it's action sequences than most anime I have seen, (with the
granted exceptions of a few events, the bathroom fall etc.) in terms of what a
person could actually be capable of. It's a nice change to not see the typical
"superhuman" abilities so prevalent in anime. And to not know if a character
is going to come out of a situation unharmed, let alone alive.
Sawa, a
college age female assassin, (the main character), is knowingly in the "employ"
of her parents killer, Akai; A detective with a taste for young girls, and death.
With her "love" interest, Oburi...(a male assassin of her age in Akai's
employ), coming in shortly thereafter. His background is virtually unexplored,
which might have made for a more emotional ending. But I think that would've gone
against the theme of this movie.
While Kite is well above average,
in most aspects, the short length makes it unable for you to develop any attachment
to any of the characters. Still worth watching though.
Animation: 4 out
of 5. Very well done, but nothing breathtaking.
Storyline: 2 out of 5.
Not that it's bad...just not what it could be. But I think that is more because
of the sort length.
Overall, I would give Kite:Director's Cut 3
and a half stars. Good for what it is, but not great for what it might have been. |
| 7. Bugmaster
 
Kite is a hyperviolent hentai about two assassin-kids,
one of whom (the girl, obviously) happens to be sexually abused by her superiors.
There is a bit of plot involved -- intrigue, betrayal, mysteries -- but it's fairly
straightforward and predictable. In fact, the movie sweeps most of the plot under
the rug, in order to make room for more exploding skulls and bouncing breasts.
Which is a shame, because this movie could have been quite good. It wouldn't take
much, really -- flesh out the plot a bit, develop the characters, cut down on
pointless sex scenes... Alas, for now this anime is mediocre at best. Some
people describe Kite as "dark" or "disturbing". However,
I never found hentai or splatterfest movies to be particualrly dark or disturbing.
The really disturbing movies don't show you the sick,
twisted horror -- they
merely hint at it, letting your mind do the rest. Kite lets everything
out in the open, where it can only inspire disgust or shock. Which can be fun
too, I suppose, if that's your cup of tea. |
| 6.
Yogi  
After so many anime out there that try to explore weighty philosophical
issues or complex detailed plots like Evangelion, Lain, Princess
Mononoke, and Perfect Blue, this anime goes back to the basics. Namely,
Sex and Violence. There’s PLENTY of that and, while there is a plot attached
to this show (which is actually quite dark) that’s where the similarities
between this and quality anime ends. It’s about assassins who kill and blow
up stuff in magnificent ways, while still managing to sandwich sex scenes in the
middle, often seemingly at random. I think at some point it was supposed to be
dark, Noirsh, and nihilistic, but that alone does not good anime make. |
| 5. Olmanek
(I'm deliberately focusing on some of the more vague and obvious
aspects of this movie because I don't believe it would be fitting to try and bother
explaining the worth of this movie, as it is something which really needs to be
seen to be appreciated.) It certainly has an interesting
take on violence, somewhat unrealistic but still terribly brutal and in a few
ways plausible. Our young lady Sawa is an assassin, a very adept one, but that
isn't to say she is the perfect killer, or that her abilities are entirely overwhelming,
during a couple of the battles body guards who are in most anime and movies treated
as cannon fodder gave her quite a bit of trouble, I think perhaps it lent itself
to the more realistic idea that generally no matter how skilful you are 4 will
always beat 1 so long as they all don't stand in a line waiting to have their
go. She works under the will of a man named Akai, and his, I suppose lackey would
be an okay term, named Kanai, one of the few problems I had during this movie
is that even though Akai is clearly a terrible person, the targets Sawa is ordered
to assassinate are usually bad people themselves, child molesters and such, however
there is no real reason as to why he wants her to kill them, only a justification,
I'm not sure if that was deliberate or not. There was some mention that he just
enjoys watching the pain of others but that doesn't explain nearly enough. The
gun Sawa uses is interesting, it appears to shoot a small explosives device which
will puncture the skin then once inside will explode after a few seconds using
either a time trigger or a special button on the gun it was fired from. There
is another assassin working for Akai named Oburi, he seems to have about the same
skill level as Sawa and offers something of a love interest in the movie, but,
considering the truly dark nature of this movie it doesn't have the usual sense
of a love interest that you would find in other anime. There is a definite 80's
New York slums feel to this movie, with that horrendously bad saxophone music
in the background as was popular for a lot of 80's American movies, the character
designs are not eye candy in the normal sense, I think perhaps the character designs
and background designs were deliberately ugly as something of a visual representation
of the dark nature of the movie, the animation is of good quality and the action
scenes are very well done and quite interesting. This a very rare movie with its
closest counterparts being generally unknown films in foreign languages, but to
set it slightly apart because this is an anime they are capable of so much more
as they are not limited to real places or people, an amazing movie to behold.
|
| 2. Alastor
Please note that there will be spoilers in here for people
who haven’t seen the original version. There
isn't much of a difference between the original and the Director’s Cut except
sex scenes, and one brief scene of the girl who shot Oburi. The first sex scene
is when Sawa and Akai are watching the news, and Akai tells Sawa to “come
here.” She says she’s not in the mood, and in the original they move
on. In the Director’s Cut however, Akai commands her to take off her clothes
and they proceed to have sex. The second sex scene is when Sawa is having the
flash back of her parent’s death and the things Akai did to her. In the original
it shows Akai beginning to do things to her, but never shows anything. Now it
shows Akai having sex with Sawa at a very young age. Next, while Sawa is falling
out of the building, just before her and that guy pass by a window, there’s
a scene of two people having sex where the girl says, “I think we’re
being watched” and the guys says, “How exciting!” and that’s
it. This scene was gratuitous. The next one has Kanai raping a girl. This one
is directly after Akai discovers Sawa killed the wrong movie star. It leaves that
scene, then goes back to it later showing the girl giving Akai head. These aren't
gratuitous because these show just how evil and corrupted Kanai and Akai really
are. Then finally we have the one after Oburi and Akai get into that fight. This
one is the most disturbing as Oburi is forced to watch Akai rape Sawa while he
has a gun to his head. Overall the Director's cut is better to watch because it
gives you a much better idea of just how bad Akai and Kanai really are. |
| 1.
weasl
Having seen both versions that have been released in the US
now (cut to hell, and less cut version), I have to say that the less cut version,
while graphic to the extreme, is by far the superior. The cut scenes were all
graphic sex scenes, but within them we got a better look at what is happening
and what has happened to Sawa, as well as giving us a deeper loathing for her
2 "employers". The sex is there, but the majority of it is short, and
is actually used as a story device in most cases. The final US cut cuts out only
about 10 seconds of footage, all involving sex with young Sawa. The new cut is
not for the faint of heart, and combines extreme violence with graphic sex and
rape, and is of course not for children. |
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