A Kite

This is movie is the primary example of why Hollywood needs to stop making terrible live-action U.S. film adaptations based off of certain anime shows and movies. This anime OAV is basically a simple concept to follow, but the filmmakers of the U.S. live-action version just wanna make it a repeat of Dragonball Evolution. Now the story is actually interesting to watch and the characters have a lot more to offer since it's basically Sawa out to get revenge on only one guy that she had known who was the murderer of her family. Now if the live-action U.S. movie had gotten rid of so many unnecessary crap and just stay true to the original, I would've been fine with that. But, nope. They just made it obvious that I should just stick with the anime, instead.

Overall, I actually like this version a lot more than the live- action U.S. version.

8 out 10!!!

Definitely a must see.

First of all if you have seen Kite I guess that you are at least 18 or you have seen an awfully censored version. The movie begins with a little brutal murder scene and then gets more and more brutal every minutes. Gunfights, murders, child abusing sex scenes - this movie has it all. If you can't take this you better don't watch it, because if you do you will be disgusted and will claim that this movie is only sex and gore. But it is NOT! If you watch full director's edition, you will find how Sawa interacts with people, you will see all of the terrible things that her masters have done and will understand why she is so full of hatred. I don't really think that there was a better way to tell the story. And I don't that there is a better hit-man story, either. Maybe except for Hit-man itself ^^.

I don't know why IMDb refuses to show the word hit-man, but so be it.

Also if you don't like anime, don't watch this. You wouldn't like it-the art is a little crude, not so polished and the violence will be just way too much for you.

When I first saw this film, it was the edited American version (its missing nearly 1/2 hour), and I instantly fell in love with it. I am a huge fan of anime, but I prefer actual movie format (like that of "Perfect Blue") as opposed to the OVA format (like the "Slayers" series). This movie had an excellent plot, rapid-fire animated sequences, and alot of violence and weapons-play. I personally didn't care much for the animator's style, but that is more than made up for in the fluidity of the frames. Watching the movie in its original Japanese will help answer alot of questions that, due to mouth-syncing shortcomings, were not really addressed. And, although "Kite" (pronounced "kah-ee-toe", if one were to read the katakana on the boxfront... pronouncing it like "kee-teh" will mean something entirely different in Japanese) is missing that 1/2 hour of footage, there is nothing really lost in the plot or motif. Anyone who does not watch this film superficially will put the missing details together by context clues throughout. Overall I say that if you can, get the video in its original Japanese, with subtitles in English if necessary...get the raw feel for the film. However, the full unedited version, if you're interested, is only available in Japan, and Hong Kong, I believe. The video and DVD formats used there aren't programmed to play on American players. So, if you want to see it uncut, you'll have to see it in the country of origin.

A complete entertainer with High intensity action, Explicit content and soothing and mellow soundtrack consisting mainly of Saxophone Solos to completely fit the mood of this short yet highly entertaining movie.

The animation was a little strange, although I couldn't say it was bad. The problem was with the depiction of emotions on the characters faces, they all looked a little off. The same issue can extend to the characters themselves, though. It is difficult to empathize with any of them and the rushed nature of the script doesn't help.

The story is about young assassins, trained by people with no scruples. The violence scenes are really complicated, but also amateurish. They often end in the assassin almost failing and managing to survive by using some prop. Then you find yourself wondering why they didn't use that from the start. There are also a lot of sex scenes, bordering on rape, but they are kind of pointless after a while.

Bottom line: the atmosphere was great and the sense of desperation and dark foreboding was clearly why so many people liked this. However the story itself, while predictable and simple, was clearly meant to be more and the anime failed to capture it. The animation is simplistic as well. I watched the 2014 movie a week ago and, frankly, I think that the movie was better, moving the story in a different but good direction, while being clearly more carefully created.