Kick-Heart (2013) User Reviews

Visually striking

[cherold · 6/10 · 14 February 2017]

After watching the odd, visually striking Mind Game, I was curious what other things had been created by co-director Masaaki Yuasa. And I found this little short.

The story is a rather nonsensical thing about a masked wrestler (part- time) who falls in love with another masked wrestler. It's not a compelling story, and seems to be there mainly as an excuse for some weird animation effects. Perhaps there is some greater significance, but if so it escapes me.

The animation has a loose, crazed style and the game has a goofy sense of humor. But it struck me as generally pointless. But I've found that's true of a lot of Japanese anime shorts, so I guess some people are okay with that.

A good movie.

[theoriginalonlymilktea · 8 September 2020]

It's so good, it even makes me wanna sing in doctor's handwriting.

Different, but not necessarily convincing

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 23 August 2017]

"Kick-Heart" is a Japanese Japanese-language short film written and directed by Masaaki Yuasa. It is animated and runs for 12 minutes approximately and the story is about a wrestler making an unlikely connection with a nun. Most of it is about the wrestling part though and about the male character who is more in the center of it all compared to the female. Anyway, the only parts that I managed to enjoy were those that delivered a bit of comedy. In terms of story-telling and the plot itself, I wasn't really convinced. The animation style didn't do too much for me either I must say, but that is entirely subjective obviously. This style, however, may be the reason that the film received a fairly solid deal of awards recognition outside Japan, so many seemed to have appreciated the fact that it is not just the typical anime style approach. But I also think the latter would have worked even less with the characters. There was not really one component in here that impressed me, so I give the film a thumbs-down. Not recommended.

A child's drawing is wayyyyyyy better then the look of this movie!

[Irishchatter · 1/10 · 14 March 2016]

Seriously when i watched the movie, I thought I was gonna become blind because the colors and the drawings were so badly done! I mostly thought the bodies were just drawn out wrong, it's like the heads are bigger then their bodies. I have never seen an anime movie like this to fail on me.

Yeah its meant to be different and fairly odd but, I did not enjoy it as I would have liked to. I just don't understand why they couldn't keep the colors and the drawing of the movie to a minimum. That way, if you are someone with epilepsy, it would reduce your chance in getting an epileptic fit!

Worst anime movie out there, avoid!

huh

[Jeremy_Urquhart · 6/10 · 1 May 2024]

A weird and concentrated burst of crazy. I think I kind of liked it, but I also have almost no idea what to make of it. Despite it being a short film, it feels like there's less to immediately grab onto compared to Masaaki Yuasa's feature-length films, or at least the ones I've seen. As such, Kick-Heart feels considerably more difficult to recommend, but I guess the fact that it's only 13 minutes means it won't waste much of your time if you end up baffled by it, like me. All that being said, I did find it interesting, and Kick-Heart was consistently stylish and cool-looking, but it kind of washed over me and left me more than a little lost by the end of it all.