Review of Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

Introduction

Masamune Shirow`s cyberpunk manga has become an anime phenomenon in recent years. The original Ghost In The Shell movie was released in 1995, blending cyberpunk philosophy, with stunning visuals and jaw-dropping action to create a film that redefined the genre. Every once in a while, an anime comes along that sets the benchmark when it comes to what can be accomplished with the medium. In the eighties that was Akira, in the nineties director Mamoru Oshii`s Ghost In The Shell moved the medium forward, combining traditional line animation with cutting edge CGI. I watched it again just recently as a prelude to Innocence, and while the visuals have aged, it still presents a brilliantly developed future vision, with production values that still outclass a lot of modern animations. Ghost In The Shell proved to be highly influential. Were it not for the film`s opening credit sequence, the Matrix may have looked a whole lot different. However, a film of Ghost In The Shell`s complexity isn`t created overnight. More than just the budget, what is really needed is time and effort, and a sequel would require much more than the original, just to keep up with the technological advancements made in the interim.

It took seven years for Ghost In The Shell to come to our screens again, and even then it was on television, with the Stand Alone Complex series, this time directed by Kenji Kamiyama. Seven years on, the cutting edge computer animation techniques used in the film were pretty much standard for animation, and a show of Ghost In The Shell`s visual grandeur could be produced on a lesser budget. Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex took the characters from the film and placed them in another story universe. Section 9 was now based in Japan instead of Hong Kong, and the events of the movie never took place. It`s a measure of how technology has advanced, that the CG used in Stand Alone Complex would have made animators weep with envy 10 years ago. Stand Alone Complex has been Manga Entertainment`s flagship title for the last year, and the second series is now being released in the UK. For that second series, the film`s director Mamoru Oshii originated the story premise. However that was the least of his contributions to the Ghost In The Shell universe. In 2004, 9 years after the first film, he returned to big screen with the sequel Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence, the first animated film to be nominated for the Palme d`Or in Cannes. Ignoring the Stand Alone Complex Universe, this continues the story from the first film. Manga Entertainment release Innocence in a 2-disc set, with a UK exclusive English dub featuring the Stand Alone Complex cast.

3 years have passed since the events of Ghost In The Shell and the Puppet Master case. The Major has been presumed missing since that time, and it is now Batou who must rise to the challenge when a series of brutal murders takes place in the city. Gynoids, pleasure robots built by Locus Solus are slaughtering their owners then self-destructing. When Batou visits a crime scene, he faces a robot that goes berserk before attacking him, but before it self-destructs, he hears it cry plaintively for help. Section 9 Chief Aramaki assigns him and his partner Togusa to track down the cause of these attacks. However the trail leads via the Yakuza, hackers, corrupt bureaucrats, up the corporate ladder and into serious danger. Potentially fatal danger, when everyone is cyberised to a degree, and devious hackers can reprogram your own senses to betray you. However Batou has a guardian angel watching over him.

Video

Innocence gets a glorious 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer, with a clear and sharp image, absent of any artefacts, with good contrast and strong colours throughout. The only telltale of an anime transfer was the merest hint of digital banding, but even then I had to replay and freeze frame, and get up close to the screen. If I were obsessive about it, I could have gone through the transfer with a fine-tooth comb to spot any pixels out of place, or incidence of oversaturation (in fact in the commentary, you`re advised to sneak down the red levels of your TV set just a tad), but I was far too busy getting lost in the lush and extravagant visuals.

Is Innocence that landmark anime which will change the future of the medium? That`s usually a combination of the story and the visuals, a film that does something new with the medium. I`ll leave the content for later, but the world presented in Innocence certainly pushes the envelope with what can be achieved in anime. It seamlessly blends CGI and cel animation to a stunning degree, something I once considered not only unwise, but also impossible. The trouble is that we are now in a situation where if you have enough money, time and expertise, then anything you could possible imagine can be realised on screen. When you hear that the parade sequence alone took a year of effort to bring to fruition, you can understand just how beautiful this film looks. Everything has been meticulously designed, sculpted and realised to deliver a visual spectacle that surpasses all that has come before. If it looks familiar, you can hear Mamoru Oshii in the featurette, holding up Blade Runner as a film that inspires him, and if there is something of that gritty darkness and run down future vision in the visuals of Innocence, that is no bad thing in my opinion. The first Ghost In The Shell was hailed as a breakthrough in animation; it presented the cutting edge in visuals. Although only nine years separate the two films chronologically, in terms of visual impact and achievement, it feels as though 50 years have passed.

Audio

Disc 1 presents the film with DD 2.0 and DD 5.1 Japanese and English soundtracks, while Disc 2 has the film with DTS tracks. I listened to the Japanese 5.1 track, and found it to be splendid. The action is brilliantly reproduced with the film making good use of the surrounds. The dialogue is clear throughout, and Kenji Kawai`s music is very much a character in the film. Not surprising really, as the sound mix on Innocence was created by Skywalker Sound in the US.

There are one or two slight problems. If you are watching the English stereo version on a surround set up, it pays to turn Prologic off, as the character voices are played through all speakers simultaneously. Secondly there were a couple of trivial dropouts on the Japanese DD 5.1 track. I say trivial because they don`t affect the action, dialogue or music, rather the ambience. It`s only really noticeable in one scene, where you see a flock of gulls over an ocean. You can hear the gulls screeching and in the background the gentle susurration of the waves. While the gulls continue to squawk, the sound of the ocean drops away a couple of times for a fraction of a second. I missed it the first time round, and given the scale of technical problems that Manga have had with the Ghost In The Shell franchise in the past, it`s hardly worth mentioning. As far as I can tell, none of the other soundtracks are similarly affected. Translated subtitles are provided, and aside from a couple of minor typos they are legible and coherent throughout. (In a note of relief, I was expecting the gibberish presented on a clip from the film in Jonathan Ross` Asian Invasion programme as the official subtitles. It was stated in the programme that they accurately reflected the complex philosophy of the film. Thankfully that isn`t the case, although I`m left with the sneaking suspicion that the BBC showed a bootleg clip, with a dodgy translation.)

Normally, I`d eschew the English dub, but the complex concepts and grandiose philosophies that lie at the heart of Innocence require a fair degree of attention. The chance to watch the sheer visual beauty of the film without having to devote a significant fraction of your attention to reading lengthy dialogue is one that mustn`t be missed. Yes, the dialogue is cumbersome and drawn out, but the Stand Alone Complex cast are the perfect choices to perform in this film, and while no amount of effort can make some of this dialogue seem completely natural, they at least deliver it in a way that complements the film. This film really has to be seen twice, once in Japanese and once in English. And for once, the English dub is a UK exclusive. Let the Americans import our DVDs for a change.

Features

Normally anime is the poor cousin when it comes to DVD extras, but Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence has more extras than most. The animated menus follow a holographic style that mirrors the information displays in the film, they are pretty to look at, but simple to navigate and efficiently presented.

Disc 1

The Making Of Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence lasts 16 minutes and is a brief look behind the scenes. There are interviews with the cast and crew, as they talk about the characters and the story. There are plenty of browbeaten animators shown slaving away over a hot computer screen, although some of them still use the occasional pencil. It`s subtitled of course.

You will also find the audio commentary on this disc, with director Mamoru Oshii and animation director Toshihiko Nishikubo discussing the making of the film and other aspects of the story. They are pretty critical about the film, things they could have done better if they had more time or things that worked out well, and there is little of the mutual admiration that marks a typical Hollywood yak track, but it is still informative. Optional English subtitles are provided, although for me they were compulsory.

Disc 2

Begins with a Sneak Peak (sic) of Episode 5 of Stand Alone Complex`s 2nd Gig. This is 5 minutes long, and something I avoided like the plague. No spoilers please.

Next there is another UK exclusive, a `Face to Face` Interview with Mamoru Oshii. This lasts 24 minutes and he answers questions about the film, how he feels about the dubbed versions, the differences between the film and the series, the success of the first film and more, and of course he talks about the influence of Blade Runner. Subtitles are burnt in for this featurette.

The full-length Japanese trailer for Innocence is here, and at 5 minutes plus it shows a lot of the film.

Finally there are trailers for other Manga products. All the usual suspects are here, Millennium Actress and Stand Alone Complex. New to the roster is an intriguing show called Karas.

The two discs are packaged in an Amaray case, which slides into a cardboard slipcase. The slipcase has `From the Creators Of Spirited Away and Howl`s Moving Castle` emblazoned on it. While it is factually accurate, Studio Ghibli is one of the co-producers of Innocence, this is as far from a family friendly film as you can get, and it seems a naked attempt to cash in on some Miyazaki magic. Inside, you`ll find an advert for a couple of video games, as well as an eight-page booklet with an introduction to the film written by Jonathan Clements.

Conclusion

This feels less like a review than a chance for me to relate my first impressions. Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence is a film that demands repeated viewings. There is so much to take in, both visually and conceptually, that one sitting is just going to scratch the surface. If you are coming to this from Stand Alone Complex, then you may be a little surprised at the tone of the film. Similar to the first film, it is a thoughtful considered piece that takes time to examine the characters and the world in which they live. It`s about the ramifications of the new technology and how it affects human relationships. It`s slow, it`s considered and it`s oblique, but it is never less than riveting. That isn`t to say there isn`t any action, as there`s plenty, it`s just that it`s in context of a much larger picture.

I used to think that the original Ghost In The Shell was a victim of its own hyperbole, a case of style over substance. Watching the Mamoru Oshii interview on this disc sheds some light on his thinking. He wants to present a visual experience more than just a narrative, and the first film very much fits that category. Similarly Innocence has at its heart a simple and uncomplicated story. The investigation into the Gynoid murders takes Batou and Togusa on a journey. The investigation leads pretty minimally from A to B to C, with no diversions or subplots. Every step in the investigation adds something to the bigger picture, some analysis of philosophy, or a burst of action, or maybe merely a chance to gawk at some eye candy, but this isn`t Columbo.

The message of Innocence is almost a mirror image of the first Ghost In The Shell. The first film explored what happens when humans become more mechanised, and at what point does the sacrifice of one`s humanity become irreversible. In Innocence, it is more about the evolution of machines, at what point they become human, in the way they react, and if they begin to feel emotion. This is made clear from the awesome title sequence, which mirrors the first film directly. In the first film we saw the creation of a cyborg body, one that would eventually house the Major`s cyberbrain, from machine to human. Here we start with a cell that begins to divide, but it soon becomes apparent that this is creation of another sort, as the cell is synthetic and soon becomes the heart of a robot, from life to artificiality.

The Blade Runner homage means a whole new look for the world of Ghost In The Shell, which plays a little havoc with continuity. In some ways, it`s as if the story takes place in a different universe from the first film. That story was set in a city that was very recognisable as Hong Kong. It is a familiar technique for futuristic visions, which takes something recognisable and gives it a slight twist to make it new and futuristic. The cars, the buildings and the technology had a distinct and recognisable style. While Innocence`s characters look the same, the world they inhabit is completely dissimilar to the first film, blending retro and futurism in a distinctly different way. Everyone drives cars that seem taken from the 1930s and brought forward a hundred years, the buildings look run down and decrepit, and the city looks vastly different from that in the first film. It`s mitigated by the fact that much of the action takes place at night. The computer displays are mostly red and orange this time around, as opposed to the greens of the first film, and in terms of visuals, the two films look almost unrelated.

Innocence is a film that rewards repeat viewing, but it`s one that makes a deal with the audience. You get out what you put in. At it`s most basic level, it is a simple detective story, and the mystery is none too convoluted. But just like the first Ghost In The Shell this is a film that offers a lot more food for thought, about the nature of intelligence and the definition of humanity and the soul. If you let it work its magic on you, you`ll be tantalised and inspired by the questions it raises. Like the first film, it`s more style than substance, but I`ve come to accept that as no bad thing. Also with the visual and graphical splendour of this film, this film offers style in abundance. Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence is a delicious vision of the future that I heartily recommend.