Errinundra's Anime

In its atmosphere, colour palette and structure Kite reminds me strongly of the 1960s French film Le Samouraï about a precise, emotionless assassin in Paris. Interestingly, the plot of Le Samouraï strongly informs the John Woo film, The Killer, which, in turn, inspired the Koichi Mashimo “girls with guns” trilogy. The french film, itself, consciously follows the American film noir tradition and, besides, there's its name, of course. The journey from Japan and Hollywood to Paris to Hong Kong and back to Japan is a fascinationg one.

The OVA comes in three versions. The sex scenes in the completely uncut version disrupt the narrative flow and carefully wrought mood, while the standard version leaves out important elements that dilute the power of the director's vision. The Director's Cut should be the version of choice.

Extended review

The two hentai scenes of the uncut version were presumably added to suit the production company Green Bunny. Also like the earlier OAV, the scenes are pretty much unnecessary to the story. They are totally devoid of the prevailing humour even if Yasuomi Umetsu manages to play with our expectations in both instances. I do have a couple of other issues with those scenes. One is the common pornography trope that women enjoy rape. The other I'll mention below.

Where Kite centred on the plight of Sawa, as both victim and predator, seeking to escape her dismal circumstances, Mezzo Forte follows the more simple route of competing villains trying to outwit each other. Sawa's countepart, the garishly orange Mikura, is a marvellous character who, no matter how confused she may be by events, always takes charge of procedings - usually by busting a few heads. It's all done with considerable chutzpah and usually to comedic effect. The biggest problem with the sex scenes is that she suddenly steps right out of character to become the passive plaything of her assailants. If she were acting in character she'd be breaking balls, not giving head.

The sadistic Momomi, daughter of crime king Momokichi Momoi, is a memorable villain who, for all her crazy antics, never spoils things by laughing. At one point she berates a troop of minions for failing to do their job, goes into an adjoining room, borrows a gun from one of her bodyguards, returns and shoots them all. Somehow Umetsu then makes a gag out of one of them not dying instantly. Very clever.

Although Mezzo Forte is more entertaining than Kite it lacks its visual poetry. Nor is it as startling, despite all the violence. Where Kite was a radical departure from the then prevailing Girls with Guns formula of gleeful mayhem, as espoused by the likes of the Dirty Pair franchise and Gunsmith Cats, Mezzo Forte is an emphatic return, albeit with the violence ratcheted up several notches.