Smells like Science Fiction: Reviews of Ghost in The Shell and The Chronicles of Riddick
Good science fiction movies are hard to come by.
And you notice I don’t call them sci-fi, the way most people do. Whatever you may say, call me a purist, anything, I’m sorry, but I still like the old true name of the genre, Science Fiction.
Sci-fi (often pronounced “sky-fi”) is what ignoramuses used to call Star Wars back in 1975. Us true bean-heads used to call it SF then and still do.
Although, sigh, I know that even some diehard SF fans now use sci-fi as often as SF.
Anyway, forget acronyms.
Really good SF movies are hard to come by.
Sure, there are a lot of SF movies, especially these days when every second film seems to have some strong SF or Fantasy element in it.
But very few are truly SF.
Ghost In The Shell is one exception.
It’s a really terrific SF movie, and an exciting movie as well.
It also manages to say some really interesting things philosophically about reality, the body-soul relationship, and the meaning of existence itself.
Sounds whacked, doesn’t it?
It is!
But it’s also a great cop-chase movie, with really amazing shootouts and hi-tech weaponry going ga-ga on the streets of Hong Kong, not to mention a fair bit of gratuitous nudity and some dazzling sfx.
Oh, did I mention? This is the film that inspired the Wachowski brothers to make their Matrix Trilogy.
You can even see the influence in the opening title sequence, where the green programming code scrolls up endlessly.
(In Ghost In The Shell, by the way, that’s the actual programming algorithms for the film that you’re seeing scrolling up – I’ve no clue if the ones in the Matrix movies are real or gibberish though.)
Now, here’s the kicker.
Ghost In The Shell is an animated film.
Yup.
You read it right the first time around.
More specifically, it’s a Japanese anime, made in 1995.
But trust me, it’s not your typical anime at all.
No schoolgirlish heroine with those baby-doe eyes and sailor skirt.
One of the key things I liked about Ghost In The Shell was that they made the original manga character in the story an older woman.
That itself was a major breakaway from anime tradition.
It works brilliantly in the film, as you can see for yourself.
Because Ghost In The Shell is not just SF, it’s noir SF.
That means it falls in the very exclusive club of movies that combine the genre of Science Fiction with Crime Noir stories.
(The Matrix is a noir film too. Other noir SF films include Bladerunner – probably the classic of the genre. Hmm. I can’t think of too many other good ones offhand, which is why I like this one so much, I guess.)
It’s a great film in every way.
Great animation.
The chase sequence in Hong Kong is my favourite.
The choice of setting itself is so original, it lends so much flavour and colour to the sequence.
The music in the film is excellent too, so evocative of the mood, using a traditional Japanese folk style in a complete contrast with the high tech futuristic world portrayed in the images.
It’s a great script, praised by no less than James Cameron.
And on the DVD, you get to see every nuance of detail, every brilliant sequence and effect, over and over again, as many times as you like.
A couple of suggestions:
The Special Features on the DVD includes a “Making Of…” feature. This is a must-watch, of course, for any fan of anime as well as of SF. It happens to be entirely in Japanese, with only the Q&A with the various technicians translated into subtitles.
Don’t worry too much about it.
I don’t know a word of Japanese, yet I was able to follow the commentary in this feature quite well.
One of the things I loved was the humility with which each of the technicians talks about his or her contribution to the film.
It’s so unlike the typical Hollywood way of hyping up what you’ve done, and smugly praising yourself and everyone on the film.
Some of them even wonder if they’ve been able to do their job successfully!
Trust me, they have. And the result is one of the finest animated films, as well as one of the all-time best SF films ever made.
The last thing I’d suggest is that you watch it with the original Japanese audio track playing and English subtitles.
Now, you may wonder why you should bother, when there’s an English dubbed version on the disk.
The reason is two-fold:
The original Japanese track gives you the dialogue voiced by the original actors, who have done a wonderful job, especially the two main characters, Major and Batou.
The English version just can’t capture the nuances and flavour of Japanese dialogue, or the cultural mannerisms.
But more importantly, the dubbed English version changes many crucial lines, softening, diluting, and in places, even dropping out certain terms and phrases.
Whereas the English subtitles translate the Japanese as closely as possible, without trying to be politically correct or soften the language.
Lastly, this is a Strictly Adult film. (No, there’s no sex onscreen, but there’s a lot of nudity – again, not sexual nudity, just plain nudity, as in female android being constructed in a laboratory, etc.)
But if you haven’t seen it yet, see it.
If you like it, then I’ll be reviewing a whole bunch of Japanese anime films and TV series here soon. It’s a genre I’ve come to late but have become a huge fan of. I predict that within the next five to ten years, Japanese anime is going to be the Next Big Thing in cinematic entertainment worldwide. And Japanese manga is going to be one of the biggest selling categories in books.
James Cameron seems to agree with me: His next project after Titanic (in 10 years, if you don’t count his TV series Dark Angel, and I don’t) is going to be a film version of the brilliant manga Battle Angel (or Battle Angel: Alita as some of us fans call it). It’s going to feature his current squeeze Jessica Alba (of Dark Angel fame, also appeared as the Invisible Woman in Fantastic Four) and I can bet you he’s going to make a huge success out of it, starting Hollywood on its next spree: Chalo Japan!
I also caught another SF movie on DVD recently.
Chronicles of Riddick.
I won’t linger too long on this one.
It flopped miserably in the US, which is unfortunate, because I love the genre so much, I’d want every good film to succeed.
Riddick is a good SF film.
Not a great one. Not even a very good one.
But it’s sumptously imagined, designed, produced, brilliantly performed and directed, and the whole look is a world apart from anything else you usually see onscreen.
For that reason alone, it’s worth a dekho.
It doesn’t have a story that’s too great, of course. Which is why it didn’t succeed. And doesn’t exceed its visual brilliance.
Like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, it’s great eye candy though.
(And not just for the ladies who like Vin Diesel’s rippling physique!)
And it’s SF, of a sort.
This entry was posted on Sunday, August 14th, 2005 at 12:33 am. It is filed under Ashok.
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