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DVD Metropolis
Adapted from Osamu Tezuka's 1949 manga, Metropolis (in Japanese with English subtitles) is an opulently beautiful film that fails to present a coherent story worthy of its extraordinary visuals. Evil Duke Red (voice by Taro Ishida) plans to rule the world from Ziggurat, his newly completed art deco tower. A new robot is being developed by his henchman Dr. Laughton (Junpei Takeguchi) to control all the machines in the world from Ziggurat. Japanese detective Shunsaku Ban (Kousei Tomita) and his nephew Kenichi (Kei Kobayashi) arrive in Metropolis in pursuit of Laughton and are plunged into Red's plot. When the duke's maniacal adopted son Rock (Kohki Okada) attacks Laughton's hidden lab, Kenichi and the waiflike android Tima (Yuka Imoto) flee into the city's subterranean slums and fall in love. Despite a protracted series of chases and violent shootouts, there's little excitement and less character development. Director Rintaro (Hayashi Shigeyuki) borrows heavily from Fritz Lang's 1926 Metropolis, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, and Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira, but his staging makes much of the action hard to follow. The film takes an unintentionally hilarious turn when Ziggurat crumbles to Ray Charles's "I Can't Stop Loving You." The computer-generated skyscrapers, machines, and airships offer dazzling vistas of an overscaled and sinister deco-dystopia. But Tezuka's flat little characters, with their big eyes, round noses, and bubble-shaped feet, don't fit into that realistic three-dimensional environment. MPAA rating: PG. Contains considerable violence and grotesque imagery. --Charles Solomon
Para todos aquellos que hablan español, dejenme contarles un poco. Basicamente trata la historia de una ciudad llamada Metropolis, donde hay gente con deseos de conquistar al mundo. La historia se centra basicamente en 5 personajes : el detective Shunsaku Ban, su sobrino Kenichi, el ambicioso Duque Rojo (Red Duke), su hijo adoptivo Rock y el personaje central que es la robot (aunque ella no lo sepa) Tima. La grafica es una mezcla curiosa. El diseño de los personajes es muy estilo anime mas clasico (no como Dragon Ball) mezclado en ocasiones con fondos 3D y pedazos de pelicula real, como un fondo donde se ve una pecera (y es una pecera tal cual como la de un acuario de la vida real). Sin duda recomiendo este anime.
Great movie
The animation blew me away. and the story had amazing science fiction to it
Beautiful old style character design
I'm not very good at wording things but I would like to comment on Metropolis.
I'll let the other reviews speak for the storyline and plot. I did like it and will watch it again. What I would like to do is comment on the negative views of the character animation.
The characters do have a somewhat Astro-Boy appearance but the smoothness of movement far surpasses that of Astro Boy. It is certainly leagues beyond the likes of Yu-GI-Oh, Digimon, Pokemon, or any American Saturday morning cartoon or "cheap 80's drawing."
What you do have is a very old style of character design with excellent motion and color which I think is beautiful especially because of it's old look. I think it works well with the computer animation. For some reason the 1939 animated film Gulliver's Travel comes to mind. The movement is not perfect but it is very well done.
The film is NOT for you if you think anything less than Skrek or Toy Story is archaic or behind the times and not worth watching. This film is NOT for you if you hold opinions like the characters "look like they were from "a freakin Rodger Rabbit" or a dull and boring character design that went out with the 30's.
This film IS for you if you do appreciate the dying art form of great cell animation like Gulliver's Travels, Disney's Snow White, old Popeye or the old Warner Bros. cartoons.
I think it is sad that hand drawn animation is a dying art form. Disney has decided not to do anything from now on unless it is completely computerized and it seems we will be stuck with either really bad stuff like Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon or completely hands off computer animation. It is sad that there will be no more great hand drawn stuff like Disney's Pinnochio.
Artist-writer Katsuhiro Ôtomo began telling the story of Akira as a comic book series in 1982 but took a break from 1986 to 1988 to write, direct, supervise, and design this animated film version. Set in 2019, the film richly imagines the new metropolis of Neo-Tokyo, which is designed from huge buildings down to the smallest details of passing vehicles or police uniforms. Two disaffected orphan teenagers--slight, resentful Tetsuo and confident, breezy Kanada--run with a biker gang, but trouble grows when Tetsuo start to resent the way Kanada always has to rescue him. Meanwhile, a group of scientists, military men, and politicians wonder what to do with a collection of withered children who possess enormous psychic powers, especially the mysterious, rarely seen Akira, whose awakening... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Mitsuo Iwata - Nozomu Sasaki - Mami Koyama Director(s): Katsuhiro Ôtomo DVD Release Date: Released the 24 July 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The skillful blending of drawn animation and computer-generated imagery excited anime fans when this science fiction mystery was released in 1995: many enthusiasts believe Ghost suggests what the future of anime will be, at least in the short term. The film is set in the not-too-distant future, when an unnamed government uses lifelike cyborgs or "enhanced" humans for undercover work. One of the key cyborgs is The Major, Motoko Kusanagi, who resembles a cross between The Terminator and a Playboy centerfold. She finds herself caught up in a tangled web of espionage and counterespionage as she searches for the mysterious superhacker known as "The Puppet Master."
Mamoru Oshii directs with a staccato rhythm, alternating sequences of rapid-fire action (car chases, gun battles,... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Atsuko Tanaka - Iemasa Kayumi Director(s): Mamoru Oshii DVD Release Date: Released the 31 March 1998 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Hayao Miyazaki gained widespread attention in Japan for his complex ecological manga series, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1982), which he adapted for the screen two years later. One thousand years after a war devastated much of the Earth, humanity clings to existence at the fringes of a vast, polluted forest inhabited by monstrous insects. Only Nausicaä, the princess of the tiny realm of the Valley of the Wind, grasps the environmental significance of the forest. She sees beyond petty wars and national rivalries to the only viable future for the planet. In Nausicaä, Miyazaki began to explore elements he would develop more fully in his later films: daring, compassionate heroines; exciting flying sequences; colorful side characters; strong interpersonal... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Hayao Miyazaki DVD Release Date: Released the 22 February 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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One of the most ambitious animated films to come out of Japan (or anywhere, for that matter), Perfect Blue is an adult psycho-thriller that uses the freedom of the animated image to create the subjective reality of a young actress haunted by the ghost of her past identity. Mima is a singer who leaves her teeny-bop trio to become an actress in a violent television series, a career move that angers her fans, who prefer to see her as the pert, squeaky-clean pop idol. Plagued by self-doubt and tormented by humiliating compromises, she begins to be stalked, in her waking and sleeping moments, by an accusing alter ego who claims to be "the real Mima," until she collapses into madness as her coworkers are brutally slain around her. Director Satoshi Kon, adapting the novel by Yoshikazu... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Satoshi Kon DVD Release Date: Released the 02 May 2000 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Mamoru Oshii's landmark Ghost in the Shell (1995) largely defined the cyberpunk genre and influenced the Matrix films in the U.S. The long-awaited sequel continues the adventures of Batou, Major Kusanagi's former assistant, who was left behind when she disappeared into the cyber-realm of the Net. With his new human partner, Togusa, Batou investigates a series of bloody murders involving gynoids, robots with sexual functions. The case leads them to the headquarters of the Locus Solus company, where Batou uncovers the evil secret behind the creation of the gynoids. Innocence includes some staggeringly beautiful CG images, especially a parade depicting characters from Chinese mythology. Oshii contrasts this glittering beauty with a Blade... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Akio Ôtsuka - Atsuko Tanaka - Tamio Ôki Director(s): Mamoru Oshii DVD Release Date: Released the 28 December 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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