Anime fans who came of age in the late 1990s will probably remember "Kite." The sexually explicit straight-to-video anime release told the story of an exploited young woman turned assassin (a la Luc Besson's "Leon: The Professional"), and gained enough notoriety stateside to reportedly influence Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill" and inspire a forgettable live-action remake with Samuel L. Jackson.
"Kite" was written and directed by Yasuomi Umetsu, an animator known for his distinctive character designs and detailed animation — one reason "Kite" is still revered among fans is for its jaw-dropping action set pieces. On the back of its success, the animator went on to helm several girls-with-guns properties, like "Mezzo Forte" (2000), "Mezzo DSA" (2004) and "Kite Liberator" (2008), the latter two dropping the sexual content for mainstream audiences.
Now "Clockwork Girl," the first chapter of Umetsu's new project "Virgin Punk," is out in limited theatrical release in Tokyo and Osaka. Umetsu has apparently been working on the project with anime studio Shaft for over a decade and, for better or worse, it's exactly what you'd expect.
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