After spending years in California, Amir returns to his homeland in Afghanistan to help his old friend Hassan, whose son is in trouble.
This movie is a powerful one to watch, it keeps you balancing on the edge of your seat until the end, and even when it's over it stays in your mind, such is the memorable nature of the story. A brilliant bargain for a such a brilliant film :)
Having read the book, the Kite Runner, and being so convinced of the story through the vivid recollections of Amir, I truly encouraged my whole family to read it too. My son and husband, who never read, both read the book and thought it was brilliantly written and poignant. I bought the film and was a little disappointed. Perhaps the book is so well written, that the film could never live up to it. My daughter, who had not read the book, thought the film was 'really good'. I cant help feeling that the film missed out on the depth of despair experienced by Amir, Hassan and Sorab, the strength of the friendships and the cultural influences. The performances were OK but not outstanding and the sets really reminded me of 1970's soap scenes. The ending is dumbed down, perhaps because the real story is so distressing. Still if you never read, I recommend the film for the essence of a truly lovely story. If you love reading, read the book!
"The Kite Runner" is an engaging story of childhood betrayal and adult redemption. It is well told, but not a spectacular film. I didn"t read the book that this film is a translation of as I thought it was a kind of "buy 2 get 1 free" in Waterstones glimpse into the lives of the exotic and less fortunate for middle-brow middle-class (nice) white women living in suburban England. Watching the film, however, I had to dismiss some of this prejudice. It is a good story populated with sympathetic, if not complex, characters, and that is, really, enough to make a film worth watching. Nevertheless, there were a few things about "The Kite Runner" that I had a problem with. The greatest of these was that it all looked like it was filmed on set, a physically contrived world occupied by extras and actors, crew and camera. It lacked the realism that all other films I have seen about / set in Afghanistan have, and that is something I missed. Perhaps because of this, the film failed to capture any sense of place, either of landscape or cityscape. Neither did it convey much of a sense of distance, culturally as well as geographically, between Afghanistan and the USA (or therefore time). This is a major flaw considering the film"s protagonist is a displaced Afghan refugee. Similarly, the sequences where kites soar above Kabul, and later a park in the USA, potentially spectacular and intended tense / emotional highpoints, were lacking. Whilst I want to blame this on the CGI of the cities beneath the kites, I think my disappointment with these scenes was actually symptomatic of my inability to empathise fully with the characters and / or locations. Despite this, however, the film has just as many good moments, some of them quite shocking, and, as I have said above, does tell a good story. A story worth watching.
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Please note this is a region 2 DVD and will require a region 2 (Europe) or region Free DVD Player in order to play. Set in 20th-century Afghanistan, THE KITE RUNNER is a fascinating tale of two boys, united by their love of kite flying, divided by tragic circumstances. When Amir abandons his friend Hassan in his darkest hour, their friendship drifts away like the proverbial kite. Years later and continents apart, Amir seeks to make amends for his cowardly behaviour... even if that means risking his own life.
Director Marc Forster's adaptation of Khaled Hosseini's bestseller about one man's search for redemption from a childhood betrayal in his native Afghanistan. Childhood friends Amir (Zekeriah Ebrahimi) and Hassan (Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada) spend their days on the streets of Kabul getting up to mischief and eagerly awaiting the spectacular kite-fighting contests. But the joyous excitement of the day is ruined by a shocking act that changes the two boys' relationship forever, with Amir leaving soon after to live in America, just as the threat of war becomes a grim reality. 20 years later, and still haunted by the past, Amir (played as an adult by Khalid Abdalla) returns to Afghanistan, now in the grip of the Taliban, determined to finally redeem himself.
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