Ghost in the Shell

Ghost in the Shell is a masterpiece. I would go so far as to say that it's the second best science fiction film I've ever seen (behind 2001, of course), but no one knows about it. I find it terribly unfortunate that the only American viewers familiar with Ghost in the Shell are anime fans, many of whom overlook the film's complexity and see only its nudity and violence. The movie kind of gets in its own way-- within the first five minutes we see the heroine's nude body as well as a very messy head-exploding scene, and many of the viewers who would otherwise end up enthralled by the film's abundant style and intelligence immediately dismiss it as exploitative anime trash. Every time I show this movie to non-anime fans I have to explain beforehand that Ghost in the Shell is a serious work of science fiction and that everything in it, including the adult content, is part of the point the movie makes about where our society is headed.

The film is stylish, artistic, and beautiful. Masamune Shirow's stunningly believable vision of the future makes the jump from manga to anime remarkably well. As brilliant as the comics are, I really prefer the film version, which eliminates the nearly pornographic T&A (the film has nudity but it's clearly not meant to be titillating) and all of the exaggerated comic relief which only detracted from the manga in my opinion. The film's action sequences are strikingly different from the overly stylized symphonies of destruction seen in most action films. Gunfire, martial arts combat, and car chases are depicted exactly as they would occur in the real world-- without fast music or Armageddon-style hyper-editing or any of the needless cinematic baggage we've come to expect. But it's the movie's ideas that make it great, particularly in the last half hour, when thoughtful viewers learn what this story is all about-- the emergence of a new kind of life form, an intelligent and self-aware intelligence that can live indefinitely without ever inhabiting a physical body. The film argues that this will occur within the next thirty years, and the superbly ambiguous ending inspires us to come up with our own ideas of what will happen to humanity once this new life form begins to reproduce. This is filmmaking that should be seen and discussed.

And now the disclaimer. All of the above comments refer to the subtitled Japanese version of the film, NOT the English dub. Simply put, the dub ruins everything. A good example is Kusanagi's wry comment at the very beginning of the film. An officer who is communicating with Kusanagi through a kind of electronic telepathy tells her there's a lot of static in her brain. In the original Japanese version (as well as in the manga) she replies that "It's that time of the month," but in the dub her comment is inexplicably changed to "Must be a loose wire." It's completely insane-- do they think that, in a film with considerable nudity and graphic violence, people are going to be offended by a PMS innuendo? The whole movie is filled with such intelligence-insulting changes; please do yourself a favor and watch the subtitled version.

There are many many many MANY themes to take away from this cinematic experience, perhaps it is abit too heavy for its own good. The story includes a cyborg agent investigating "The Puppet Master" which is a virus capable of infiltrating human hosts. So already we are presented with questions such as: What is reality? Could everything be a simulation? Do memories define us or do we define memories? We have creationism, ideology, afterlife...this is not for your average moviegoer. In fact films like The Matrix took inspiration from this, bear in mind this wasn't entirely accessible to western audiences at the time of its release. It's very heavy going and the script doesn't help. It feels mechanical, which makes sense considering it's a techno thriller and that our protagonist is an emotionless cyborg, but it's so mechanical that it just doesn't flow.

The lead characters are memorable, from the no nonsense cyborg Major Motoko Kusanagi to her fellow agent Batou. I loved the fact that many of the humans have cybernetic enhancements and is something that could easily be real in many years to come. I adored the computer systems, it was very green and rather cyberpunk-ish...perfect for a film from 1995. The animation was fluid, although not Studio Ghibli, and still has aged well. There are some scenes with just background music and images of the cityscape, this really drives the technological style at its core. The English dub was good apart from Major's voice actress...didn't really work for me. This is a good hard sci-fi anime, although hard to follow it's themes and style pushes this above your average animation.

I was a huge anime fan in highschool but as time progressed, my interests and focus in media have changed. A few days ago I re-discovered my forgotten anime collection. Behold, Ghost in the Shell.

Watching this fine piece of animation again brought back the reasons why I was attracted to anime in the first place. It is obvious that a lot of work went into Ghost in the Shell; the attention to graphic details creates some remarkably realistic animation.

Though the major reason to see this film is for the animation, there are also other fine points to consider. It has a fairly complex plot. The science it focuses on is definitely modern though, albeit, fantastic.

I recommend the subtitled version because the dubbed dialog is sometimes over wordy and odd-sounding (as are most dubbed versions).

Some viewers may be turned-off by the many scenes that aren't accompanied by music, especially the action sequences. The music, however, is outstanding. There are a couple of scenes that are basically slide shows of various themes. These are accompanied with music and no dialog. The animation, to say the least, is beautiful and seems to be the focus.

In summary, Ghost in the Shell is very satisfying.

This is the most beautiful film i've ever seen.

There, i've said it. Watch it and be awed at how amazingly detailed and fluid the whole film is. Never does it falter in the art department. The colours are just right, the peoples movements are so real its scary, and sometimes the strong story of the film cant fit all this beauty in and so it releases it entirely in a magical scene in the middle of the film with no dialogue and no plot progression, just marvellous panoramic followed by marvellous panoramic shot. This is my favourite segment of the movie. It shows the nameless city in which the protagonists exist as a cluttered, enclosed, claustrophobic world, yet terrifyingly familiar. This film is full of such themes which subtly make their way into your mind and you dont even realise they're there until afterwards.

So lets talk about the story. Its an amazing monster of a tale, squeezing it all in barely in its short running time. It does sometimes feel a little rushed, a little convoluted so that it bears repeat viewings to get the whole thing, but it is still a strong story none the less. In fact it is a very mature story. The creators could have so easily gone the typical manga route and thrown in some invading demons or mega-destructive internet monsters. But no, the whole thing restrains intself to a realistic view of an extra-ordinary situation. it all feels like this is exactly how it would happen in real life, and that is what makes it so engaging, and so scary.

This film deserves to be seen, not just because the heavenly beauty warrants it, but because the deep issues it raises needs to be questioned. If you want to be entertained without thinking, watch Wicked City or the countless millions of other mediocre mangas out there. You want to be entertained and be made to think and question the film? See this.

You wont regret it.

Upon Ghost in the Shell's release in 1995, the Western world was still largely unfamiliar with manga, but had already had its head turned by Katsuhiro Ohtomo's Akira (1988). Blending philosophical musings with blistering action, Ghost in the Shell captured the imagination of it's new audience, helping kick-start the Japanophilia that runs so blatantly through most modern Western cartoons and lines the bookcases of many a teenager. While it certainly has its flaws, this was the first time that casual Western audiences who were new to manga had seen a cartoon be as meditative as is explosive. And for those that didn't catch it, no doubt they would have watched The Matrix (1999) four years later, a film that arguably 'borrows' a lot more from Ghost in the Shell that it lets on.

In the future, technology has become so far advanced that all aspects of life are interconnected through an electronic network. Major Motoko Kusanagi (Atsuko Tanaka), a soldier working for government agency Section 9, is a cyborg, and is able to access this network through plugs in the back of her head. She and her team are assigned to catch an elusive 'ghost-hacker' known as the Puppet Master (Iemasa Kayumi), an intelligent entity created by the government, who they lost control of when it became self-aware. When the Puppet Master surfaces in the mangled body of an artificial human shell, Kusanagi faces a crisis of identity.

Disappointingly, the film begins with gratuitous nudity, showing off the fine female form (with giant breasts, of course) of Major Kusanagi just before she takes a plunge off a building to nail some bad guys. Manga caters heavily for its audience, be it sexually-frustrated, highly- stressed businessmen or horny teenagers who have no doubt been bombarded with images of giggling, short-skirted school girls throughout their young life. Thankfully, these moments are brief, and prove to be not much more than a mild distraction from the stunning animation on show. Things are grim in the future, but they're certainly beautiful to look at.

The sexism aside, Kusanagi is an interesting character. When a man realises his wife and daughter are nothing more than an implanted memory, he fails to comprehend it. Kusanagi, with her mixture of organic and mechanical body parts and uploaded memories, struggled to define what it is to be human. Her hunt for the Puppet Master, who is seemingly a new kind of being, becomes a hunt for identity. Is it enough to be aware of what and who you are? The philosophy, although provocative, is heavy-handed. Conversations about humanity between Kusanagi and her second-in-command Bateau (Akio Otsuka) are delivered with a monotony worthy of a whiny emo teen, and I found the film's first half quite a head-scratcher. But things thankfully do become clearer, and the film is still, almost twenty years later, one of the best examples of the genre.

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