Collecting the two Kite movies in one BD set gives a little bit of a mixed bag.
What They Say:
Kitty’s High-Caliber Classics contains two anime OVA’s A Kite: Uncut and Kite Liberator both directed by Yasuomi Umetsu.
A KITE: She may be cute. She may be young. She may seem innocent and naïve but don’t be fooled! She’s a coldblooded killer and if she finds you on the wrong side of the law, you will be her next target! After the brutal double murder of her parents, the young Sawa is orphaned and taken in by a detective. Not content to watch the corrupt justice system let dangerous criminals go free on a daily basis, the detective trains Sawa to be his instrument of justice. After all, who would suspect a pretty college student of being a deadly vigilante! Yasuomi Umetsu’s A KITE: UNCUT has achieved legendary status in the annals of extreme anime.
KITE LIBERATOR: Years after the events that transpired in A KITE, Sawa’s whereabouts are a mystery. Soon, rumors of a new killer begin to circulate the city. They call her the Angel of Death, an unfeeling assassin who eliminates her targets with grace and precision, leaving only a flurry of feathers behind as her calling card. But the public is unaware of the fact that this notorious hit man is actually a polite seeming gentle young woman named Monaka!
The Review:
Audio:
For both movies, I watched the English dub, both of which are offered in 5.1 surround. Both tracks are clean, with no distortion. The mixes are solid, though the mix for Kite: Liberator seems to be a little more dynamic in terms of directionality, likely due to it being a bit newer than the dub track for Kite. Either way, both sound fine, though neither will blow you away.
Video:
Kite is presented in 1080p in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The movie opens with a card that warns that some of the visuals look a little rough due to their age, and it is not wrong. Having seen various editions of this release, the HD upgrade does not clean this up as well as other titles. The actual transfer appears to be pretty clean, but roughness of the source material appears to be coming through that much more clearly because of how clean it is. That said, as this title is supposed to be gritty and dirty, the roughness of the visuals actually works in its favor, so it’s not something that bothered me. Just don’t expect this to look as gorgeous as a lot of other older titles that get the HD treatment.
Kite: Liberator has a much better upgrade, which is to be expected being eight years newer. This transfer is also clean, and there’s some good differentiation across the spectrum, which is appreciated as this is a pretty dark title. Not a lot of bright colors, but everything comes through clearly. As with a lot of title from around this time (2008), the CG really stands out in HD, but it’s not as bad as others I’ve seen. This is a solid release.
Packaging:
Pretty basic packaging here. Each movie is put on its own disc (likely just the individual releases), and the two discs are housed in a standard BD case. The front cover has a picture of Sawa and Monaka with the title cards for the two movies. The back has summaries, screenshots, and technical details for both movies. Solid release, but nothing spectacular.
Menu:
The menus for Kite are super basic. The main menu has a static image of Sawa with the selections for Play, Scene Selections, Setup, and Extras showing up clearly against the stark red background. The setup looks fine, but it is definitely a recycled DVD menu and not what we typically get on a BD disc.
The menus for Kite: Liberator are a bit more dynamic and more in line from what you’d expect for a BD release. The main menu is animated, showing various scenes from the movie in the background with selections aligned across the bottom. The reel keeps playing through menu transitions, making navigating the menus seamless.
Extras:
Kite has a reel of storyboards and image galleries, as well as two interviews, one with director Yasunomi Umetsu and one with producer Osamu Koshinaka. Kite: Liberator has a couple featurettes from its media tour at the Tokyo International Film Festival, as well as interviews with Umetsu and a bunch of the Japanese VAs. Between the two titles, there is a lot to dig into here, which is nice.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
This release contains the movie Kite and its sequel movie, Kite: Liberator. Kite was originally released in 2000, while the sequel came in 2008. Kite has two cuts: an uncut version that contains a handful of hardcore sex scenes and an edited version that has those scenes cut down to remove all hardcore imagery, if not removed completely. The set I reviewed contains the uncut version of Kite, though there is a set that has the edited version. Kite: Liberator has no hardcore sex scenes in either set.
Kite tells the story of a young, female assassin named Sawa. A few years earlier, Sawa’s parents had been brutally murdered, and she was taken in by Akai, the detective who investigated the murder. Akai is anything but a benevolent guardian, however. It is Akai who trains Sawa to be an assassin, setting her against child molesters, while at the same time using her as his personal concubine. Sawa goes along with it as she is desperate to find her parents’ killer, and Akai promises to find him for her. But when she meets Oburi, another assassin in the employ of Akai and his partner Kanie, she begins to think about life outside of Akai’s influence, and the wheels of her independence begin to turn.
Kite is a terrific, if not happy in any way, movie. It builds a gritty world that Sawa is attempting to negotiate and introduces quite a few layers of duplicity before all is said and done. It crams a lot into its 50-minute run-time. Having seen both the uncut and edited versions, this is actually a case where the movie is better with the sex scenes fully intact. There is nothing sexy or titillating about the scenes. Rather they do an excellent job of further hammering home the depravity of Akai and Kanie as they control those in their custody to achieve the ends that only they truly understand. Sawa is a willing pawn in their game, one who appears to be so only because she was duped and recruited at such an early age, but she is playing her own game, too that will play out when she is ready.
Kite: Liberator takes place a few years after the events of Kite, telling the story of Monaka Noguchi, a high school girl who by all appearances is clumsy, shy, and overly nice. She works the late shift at a maid bar, despite being underage, in order to help out her uncle who is taking care of her while her father works on the International Space Station. In reality, though, Monaka is the Angel of Death, an assassin following in the footsteps of Sawa to rid the city of sexual predators. An accident aboard the ISS, however, sees the creation of monsters that kill the crew and manage to get to the Earth’s surface, and Monaka is the only person skilled enough to have any kind of a chance at stopping them. But what will happen when she finds out the truth of what really happened in space?
Kite: Liberator is a movie that has a lot of potential, but it is very rough around the edges, and it never really figures out what it wants to be. Monaka is just as interesting a character as Sawa is in the first movie, but they never really explore what it is that makes her interesting. Sawa is a girl who is trapped in a situation where she is being manipulated to do the dirty work of a couple of lecherous and dangerous men, and the question is only what will happen when she figures out the truth. Monaka’s situation with her father being an astronaut and her trying to find her own way without his guidance has potential, but we never explore how or why she became the Angel of Death, and the situation with the monster from the ISS never really jives with everything else that is happening.
Like the first movie, this one tries to tell the story of a young girl caught up in a dark world, but we never explore what that means before it suddenly just becomes a sci-fi action movie. It’s a shame, because there is a lot here to work with, too. The owner of the bar Monaka works appears to be her boss as the Angel of Death, too, and he admits to have been friends with Akai before his death, and yet by all outward appearances, he seems like a decent person. And while never outed as such, it is strongly implied that Ms. Mukai, Monaka’s co-worker at the bar, is Sawa, as she is the only person to note that Monaka’s innocence is a pose, and she attempts to guide Monaka on the troubles of living a double life. Like with the first movie, Umetsu has built a really interesting world and characters to inhabit it, but this one never really seems to figure out exactly what it wants to be, and it suffers for it.
Pairing these two movies together is interesting, because while Kite: Liberator is certainly a direct sequel to Kite, they almost feel like they come from two different series. In terms of tone, attitude, and approach, Kite has far more in common with Umetsu’s other femme fatale movie that released the same year, Mezzo Forte, than it does its sequel, and the two were typically considered spiritual sister movies (Mezzo Forte also has both pornographic uncut and edited versions). When you consider that the version I reviewed here has the uncut version of Kite, it just amplifies the differences between it and Kite: Liberator. From a story perspective, it certainly makes sense to pair these two movies together but watching them back-to-back just highlights how different the two are.
In Summary:
This release is a little bit of a mixed bag. Kite is still a fantastic movie that is starting to show its age in the visuals department, which I could see turning newer fans off. Kite: Liberator still looks great, but its story is very muddled. Add in that despite being part of the same continuity, the two movies ultimately have very different outlooks, and they don’t really feel like part of the same series. Still, Kite is excellent, and for all its faults, Kite: Liberator certainly isn’t bad. If hentai scenes don’t bother you, then this is the set to get, though there is also a set available with the edited version of Kite if that’s more your speed. Either way, I would say this is worth checking out. Recommended.
Features:
Interviews, Gallery, Storyboards, Kite at Tokyo International Film Festival
Content Grade: B
Audio Grade: B
Video Grade: C (Kite)/A (Kite: Liberator)
Packaging Grade: B
Menu Grade: B
Extras Grade: A
Released By: Kitty Media
Release Date: March 26, 2019
MSRP: $39.99
Running Time: 110 minutes
Video Encoding: 1080p (Kite)/1080i (Kite: Liberator)
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 (Kite)/1.75:1 (Kite: Liberator)
Review Equipment:
Magnavox 37MF337B 37” LCD HDTV, LG BP330 BluRay Player w/HDMI Connection, Durabrand HT3916 5.1 Surround Sound System
