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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 829663" data-attributes="member: 8461">From over at <a href="http://www.screendaily.com/story.asp?storyid=11887" target="_blank">ScreenDaily.com</a>:Director Rob Cohen, whose recent filmmaking credits include the international hits XXX and The Fast And The Furious, is teaming up with Distant Horizon to rework the acclaimed but controversial 1998 Japanese anime shocker Kite into a live action version that will water down the original's explicit sexual content.In addition to signing on direct the remake of Yasuomi Umetsu's blood-splattered cult classic about a young female assassin bent on revenge, Cohen will also produce the bullet ballet, alongside Distant Horizon's Anant Singh and Brian Cox. Rights to the live action remake were licensed by Distant Horizon from Studio Kikan in Tokyo.Kite concerns the story of a young woman named Sawa who, after the murder of her parents, is taken off the streets by a crooked, Svengali-like detective employing homeless children to do his dirty work. Trained to kill, she exacts street justice against the detective's chosen targets, until she is able to break free of the abusive and manipulative control he has over her.With her tense sexuality and her ticking time-bomb of a personality, Cohen and Distant Horizon feel that the new, flesh-and-blood Sawa has the potential to be the biggest action heroine since La Femme Nikita. Indeed, fans of Umetsu's Kite often point to Nikita, as well as another Luc Besson-directed film, The Professional (Leon), as obvious reference points in terms of plot and characterization. While Cohen intends to keep Umetsu's highly stylized anime look, he wants expunge some of the original's graphic sex scenes - two of them involving rape - that were also excised from the initial anime version that was first shown to American audiences as a cut-down 45-minute direct-to-video title."The beautiful but deadly action sequences will remain, as will the tense and gut-wrenching approach to character conflict," said Distant Horizon in a press release about the remake, "but the live action Kite will forego the graphic adult situations in the Umetsu version."Cohen and Distant Horizon are currently meeting with writers in order to adapt Umetsu's story to the live action arena."This is a uniquely powerful property, and Rob has been a long-time fan, and we found that out a few days after we acquired the remake rights, so we went directly to him," said Singh."We felt his approach to action, and his ability to give a kind of hip re-working to various genres, made him the perfect choice. Rob has been inventive, giving new spins to the international spy thriller and the street racing film, and made them enormous worldwide box office hits. We need this kind of approach to Kite.""Umetsu's film has amazing visual intensity," said Cohen. "It would be a fine challenge to define a place where anime and movies meet."This is, most likely, a good thing for fans of anime in America, since this would indirectly bring the original to larger audiences. The removal of the sex scenes, as the article says, almost certainly won't be a loss to the plot at all (not to mention obviously being necessary to let it be a theatrical release).In regards to the original Kite anime, it's worth noting that, when the original Kite was released domestically in America by Media Blasters, it had been heavily edited, recut, rearranged the order of various scenes, and spliced the first two episodes into a single episode. The "Kite Director's Cut" released later restored almost everything that had been changed, save for a twenty-second clip of Sawa, clearly underage in that scene, having sex, since that scene was too close to child pronography to release in America.Likewise, the original Japanese release in 1998 was uncut, but had the editing of censoring the genitalia in accordance with national law, and is currently out of print. The "International Version" of Kite is still available in Japan, but this is merely a slightly different version of the heavily edited American release.The only uncut, unedited release of the original Kite anime is this <a href="http://www.dvd-shop.ch/detail.php?products_id=22808" target="_blank">German PAL DVD</a>. In addition to being a Region 2 disc,  this DVD only features the original Japanese language, and a German dub; there is no English translation available on the disc.There's also a two-episode OAV side series to Kite called Mezzo Forte, featuring a brief cameo with Sawa. Media Blasters will be releasing this in an uncut, adults-only version, and a general-release version, which will be five minutes shorter.</blockquote>

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