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Kaena: The Prophesy (2003) - the first French computer-animated
movie is a fantasy adventure and space opera about opposing cultures on neighbouring alien worlds, and features a bizarre sci-fi helicopter design
with laser beams for rotor blades! This might be technically absurd, but it's certainly unusual and quite original enough to warrant the attention
of all rotary action fans.
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Keys (aka: Keys To Her Past, 1994) - glamorous Marg Helgenberger plays helicopter-flying, expert 'freelance' pathologist, Maureen
'Kick' Kickasola, called out of semi-retirement to help Florida police detectives solve a case of murder and kidnapping.
Killer Elite (2011) - not to be confused with Sam Peckinpah's 1975 thriller, this action movie stars Jason Statham, and it features a Huey
flying low over the beach scene in Oman. There is also a Eurocopter AS-350 seen parked in a hanger, and another A-Star helicopter landing on the
London dockside.
The Kingdom (2007) - this action drama, which concerns a team of FBI agents investigating terrorism in the Middle East, features a MBB Bo
105 Bölkow circling the bombsite. Later, there's an AH-64 Apache gunship used to escort a police convoy.
King Kong (1976) - whereas the giant ape of 1933's original film was attacked by a squadron of bi-planes, the monster of this remake (produced
by Dino De Larentiis) is shot down from atop the skyscraper by three Hueys. Before falling to his death from the World Trade Centre, 40-foot tall
Kong hits one of the gunships, which crashes into the side of the building. Sadly, the special effects combining miniature helicopters and the 'giant
ape' with the New York skyline are poor quality and, compared to 21st century digital visuals, the air strike sequence is unconvincing... Just before
the finale, a Bell JetRanger brings the heroine (Jessica Lange) to Shea stadium.
King Kong Escapes (1967) - this Japanese monster movie features the big ape of the title in a battle against his mechanical counterpart,
while a swarm of helicopters buzz around them to no effect or purpose.
"This great movie features a fancy jet helicopter flown by the evil industrialist Doctor Wu.
It is just a model, but looks pretty cool. And yes, that is a robotic version of King Kong there..." - NATHAN DECKER
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King Kong Lives (1986) - the famous giant ape gets an equally oversized mate in John Guillermin's daft 10-years-later sequel. After the
male and female pair escape from captivity, US Army search teams use Huey gunships to hunt them down, and the helicopters spray knockout gas to
control 'Lady Kong'. A key sequence has the great beastie airlifted from the apes' forest hideaway by a twin-rotor Boeing CH-64 Sea Knight. Hueys
appear in various later scenes, usually flying security patrols at the military base.
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King Kong vs Godzilla (1963) - yet another Japanese monster epic by Inoshiro Honda, as ape meets lizard in the big fight sequence. There
are some miniature rotorcraft here, purportedly Sikorsky H-19 Chickasaw helicopters, and the main bout is observed by our heroes Fujita and Sakurai,
who fly too close to the action and get smacked by the monsters.
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Knight And Day (2010) - this comedy action movie has a Schweizer 300-C as transport on the hero's tropical island hideaway, but we don't
see the small helicopter in flight.
Knight Rider (1982-6) - campy TV action series created by Glen Larson. In 3rd season episode Just My Bill, a low-flying helicopter
(Bell 206 JetRanger) pursues the hi-tech car for a grenade-dropping attack. The nominal hero (David Hasselhoff) uses an ejector-seat gadget on
the auto-drive KITT car, to launch himself up through the open sunroof and into the chopper so he can throw both gunman and pilot out, making the
enemy rotorcraft crash - just as soon as our hero jumps back into his car to land safely behind the steering wheel!
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Knight Rider (2008-9) - this sci-fi action TV sequel/ remake series features an Aerospatiale AS-355F2 used by different bad guys in a couple
of episodes. It appears in the first 'pilot' episode, searching mountain roads for the hero's super-car, and the same helicopter is used for villains'
getaway vehicle from atop a multi-storey car park. A Bell LongRanger is used in the bank robbery episode, and there's a clip of three other helicopters
circling the crime scene.
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K-19: The Widowmaker (2002) - Kathryn Bigelow's tense
Cold War drama features an American CH-34 Seahorse helicopter (a Sikorsky S-58) in its climactic scenes, as Marines from a US Navy warship offer
to help the crew of a stricken Russian nuclear submarine.
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Komodo vs. Cobra (aka: KVC, 2005)
- this atrocious sequel in-name-only to 2004's Curse Of The Komodo features an island with
giant komodo dragons and king cobras, the result of (naturally) a military experiment gone wrong.
An MD 530MG Defender is used as a supply chopper by the island's scientists. Its pilot and one of its crew get killed by a komodo dragon when they
land (the third guy survives but mutates into a man-lizard hybrid in the film's idiotic twist ending), but the helicopter is left undamaged.
The MD 530 is later used by the heroic ex-army yacht captain, and the film's grand total of three leading ladies, to escape before the military
firebombs the island with stock footage of F-16 jets. CGI Black Hawks are also employed as transports for some doomed soldiers who end up as komodo
chow.
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Note: Curse Of The Komodo - the scene of the 'MD 500' failing to start and the hero futzing with the engine unrealistically is actually from
this film, unless Komodo vs. Cobra recycles its predecessor's climax (I haven't seen Curse Of The Komodo so I can't be sure).
- BILL HIERS
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Krrish (2006) - a sequel to Koi... Mil Gaya, this Bollywood superhero movie with various borrowings from mythos of
Superman, and John Carpenter's Starman, plus martial arts action
scenes from The Matrix trilogy, and plotline copied from sci-fi thriller
Paycheck. There's an Aerospatiale AS355F2 Ecureuil II used as air-taxi
around Singapore islands, and the same helicopter is chased by the hero 'Krrish' around Mumbai to the docks, then followed to the villain's secret
island base.
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Kronos (1957) - in this SF drama, the scientist heroes
fly in a helicopter around the gigantic alien machine (of the title), which threatens planet Earth. The chopper (a Bell 47G-2) lands on top of the
huge boxy structure near a transparent dome so the boffins can survey its inner workings. However, they have to make an emergency getaway when the
tower block sized invader starts moving.
"The sequence of landing on the alien robot was faked on a studio stage, with painfully obvious
stairs leading 'downstage' inside the machine's brain." - NATHAN DECKER
K-20: The Legend Of The Black Mask (2008) - in the opening CGI sequence of this Japanese sci-fi adventure, two police gyro-planes, dropped
from an airship hovering above a fictional capital of imperial Japan, are joined by another pair of matching aircraft, soaring over the sprawling
city. The duchess heroine pilots a gyrocopter, with a rope ladder dangling below it, to rescue the masked hero from a rooftop after his escape from
police. Later, in the climactic action sequence, the heroine's autogyro flying skills enable her to save the hero from death when he falls out of
a crumbling skyscraper.
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