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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, explosions) with static dialogue scenes that allow the characters to sort out the vaguely mystical and rather convoluted plot. Kusanagi's final quote from I Corinthians suggests that electronic evolution may compliment and eventually supplant organic evolution. The minor nudity, profanity, and considerable violence would earn Ghost in the Shell at least a PG rating. --Charles Solomon ... Read more

Reviews (373)

Storyline is extensively borrowed, but good A/V
When Ghost in the Shell was released, it was hailed as "the future of anime." A fair claim, as more recent works blending drawn artwork and CG have demonstrated. In this respect, it's an interesting piece of work. Note that Macross Plus experimented with this visual technique 3 years earlier, but not to the extent of Ghost.

Unfortunately, Ghost in the Shell borrows heavily from "Blade Runner", "The Terminator", and even "La Femme Nikita" to creative an unoriginal storyline. American movie fans will undoubtedly see the similarities here. I don't think Mamoru Oshii was racking his brain to create something absolutely original from a script perspective. He probably had a "look" in his head of how the film should have appeared, and filled in the narrative gaps to include as many special effects as possible. Hardcore Ghost fans will undoubtedly disagree with me on this.

The anamorphic format is great, picture quality is great. The sound quality is good, except it's too bad that there wasn't a DD5.1 Japanese audio track available on the disk. The English version dub was fair, at best. Overall, the film is definately worth watching, but isn't quite the classic it's hailed to be.

Best anime next to Akira!!
This anime was revolutionary, well drawn, well animated, and highly philisophocal. I love how GITS intrigues the mind with how technology has created highly sophisticated robots with human brains to make them the best replication of humans. Also, it teaches how science will never be able to define life. Lots of action, some violence, bare female robot flesh, and sophisticated thought have created a masterpiece. This not only challenged minds, but was the first animation to combine celluloid and computer animation. By the way, Paul Duet outta be beaten to death with a mace for saying Akira and GITS suck and saying that Trigun and Tenchi Muyo rule!! I also think genner outta be shot in the face with a 20-gage shotgun loaded with phosphor shells. Watch this, it's alot better than Princess Mononoke and Trigun combined!!

Matrix like anime
Ghost in the Shell is by far the most intellectual anime I have seen so far. The story deals with a group of cyborgs running after a new sort of being, the Puppetmaster.

The animations are of course superb and even realistic. Try the Japanse voices, I heard the American and they are sometimes lacking in emotional depth and range. A little flat sometimes and that did not do good to this otherwise great movie.

If you like the Matrix, it looks a little like it. People who can hook up to the net etc.

One of the greatest sci-fi films of all time.
Ghost in the Shell is simply my favorite science fiction film second only to Blade Runner- Director's Cut. Which, not surprisingly, influenced this movie a great deal. I remember back in 1996.....already a full blown anime aficionado, I had followed the production of this film since the first Japanese press release and was eagerly awaiting its indefinate arrival on American shores. Having read Masamune Shirow's graphic novel that inspired the film, this became the first anime title that I ever pre-ordered and counted the days upon its release.

But the movie wasn't what I had expected. The entense action was toned down a bit. The humor in the graphic novel was entirely non-existent in the film. What was left were the deep philosophical ovetones. And I commend Mamoru Oshii for making the risky decision to focus mainly on this aspect of the story. The movie, in fact, was BETTER than I could have ever hoped.

The story seems simple even typical when described, but it's the underlining philosophical themes that make this film such a treasure.

Our protagonist is Motoko Kusanagi, an officer of a military division known as Section 9. On the trail of a Notorious hacker dubbed The Puppet Master, Kusunagi begins to question her own consciousness or "ghost" as she unravels the case.

Deep in 'noir' territory, Ghost in the Shell is definately not for the viewer who likes to check their brain at the door. You will be challenged to discover the existential nature of the characters as they discover it themselves. This is not bad filmaking rather than a forced empathy with Kusunagi that will hopefully get you contemplating some of the philosophical issues presented here.

An instant classic.
intellectually and visually stimulating. great shots, action, and dialogue. ... Read more

Reviews (14)

Blue pill or the red pill?
There are serious movies. There are movies that begged to be taken seriously. Avalon is the latter. Released to a poor box office showing in 2001, the low-budget Avalon will forever be doomed to obscurity. The reason is no mystery. Avalon was directed by Mamoru Oshii, the man responsible for the Anime cult classic, Ghost in the Shell, which, like Avalon, is little more than an exercise in mood and morose pacing. However, with Avalon, self-importance discovers a new level. Avalon itself is a war-game. A very popular war game. Popular because it's virtual reality. Popular because it is potentially lethal. Within the sepia colored atmosphere of Avalon, the lines between reality and computer simulation are blurred. Sound familiar? It should. But there are no bullet-time FX to be found here. Only obscure symbolism, listless characters who stare at the floor for long periods of time, and a filthy post-apocalyptic world located in a future Poland. Only, sadly, it looks like modern Poland. Indeed, Avalon is a Japanese film, yet it's filled with Polish actors who speak only Polish. Right out of the starting gate, this film does its best to alienate the viewer. Everything is buried under so much bleakness, and the film spends so much time following characters who do little but, well, wander around, there is almost nothing to attach emotion or thought to. And the scary part is, this is why the film received any critical praise. Nothing like a big dose of pretension to make an art-house fan feel the weight of obligation. Ultimately, Avalon begs you to take it as seriously as it takes itself, it pleads you to stay the course and follow its enigmatic plot straight to the end, while, on the journey, you try to solve its meanings. Only to discover that, when you reach your destination, the film is nearly as clueless as you are. Enjoy.

Must-see for anyone interested in the nuances of filmmaking
It is unfortunate that we've been so jaded by the Hollywood version of what a film should be that we would pass up the nuances that can make an otherwise mediocre film into a great film, albeit if mainly for its cinematographic value. Some appear to have judged Avalon, and the efforts of its director (Oshii), within this context--even presuming that the film is nothing more than a bad Matrix wannabe. This is not the case, in my view.

I much prefer to be enticed by subtle details and given an opportunity to become immersed in mood than bombarded with a lot of special effects and high-flying acrobatics. This is what I found to be so refreshing about this movie.

As for providing explanations to everything, well, I don't know that that is always needed in a film in order for it to be entertaining. So is it that I find it interesting that our Western mindset cannot deal with finding deeper meanings, through our own interpretations, in most anything that we encounter. It's as if we expect to pause our brains and be entertained through mere visual stimulation. Of course, I know that this is not really what others have described. Still, this is the type of movie that I believe deserves better than what I've read in these reviews. It's funny that I say all this and it was precisely the visuals that made the film so endearing. There's nothing passe about achieving a high level of beauty in a film, and we are fortunate to have "some" directors still mindful of this growingly archaic attention to detail.

Avalon, Or: Lose respect for Japanese film in one easy step.
I got my hands on this DVD after catching the first five minutes of the movie being projected on a warehouse wall with a backdrop of thumping industrial techno. The opening scenes were rather impressive - an illegal, potentially lethal video game in which people get online, strap on military hardware and set about killing each other. Although I'm not a fan of online gaming (I'm crap at first person shooters), I thought it looked and sounded like a cool premise. So I went home and found a copy.

The first five minutes, again, were fantastic. A moderately fast-paced battle scene with awesome tech and lots of things blowing up. Fun. But then 'reality' struck.

I've long been annoyed by the sort of pseudo-symbolism that Japanese movie makers seem to like drowning their creations in. Usually it's pretentious and annoying, but it does serve to cover up the incredibly shallow plots of most Japanese animes and movies. For instance, want to have giant robots that exist for no real reason fighting monsters that continuously show up for no real reason in a post-apocalyptic world that has no reason to exist? Add a faux-Biblical subtext and you have Evangelion (which I thought was otherwise very cool).

Avalon is different. Instead of taking a shallow, unworkable pretext and slaps in a half carried-through set of (cool and ominous sounding) mythical symbolisms from another culture to add some depth, Avalon takes a monumentally workable and interesting idea and adds a crappy mythological overtone to completely deprive the movie of depth.

So many things could have been covered - why the world was so miserable, why the game killed some people and under what conditions, how laws banning the game were supposedly enforced, how the clans interacted in the game, and even how the unbelievably cool idea of preserving Dungeons and Dragons style character classes in a modern warfare game would work. These are all completely ignored in favour 90-something minutes of sepia-toned still scenes emphasising how dreary the world and city is, and cryptic but ultimately pointless references to some aspects of Arthurian legend.

The protagonists are wooden, stereotypical and unlikeable. Character development is nil. The battle scenes are few and far between, and the first one is the only good one. For the most part, even the most powerful machines lack weight and aren't particularly threatening, and even if they were, it is hard to bring yourself to care about what happens to any of the characters anyway. To top it off, the soundtrack (or lack thereof) is minimalist to the point of non-existence.

The movie ends, leaving a bad taste in your mouth. That bad taste is the taste of having had an hour and a half of your life taken away from you by a horribly pretentious Japanese gentleman. My girlfriend was put to sleep by the slow pace and dreary setting of this movie, and even after I returned the DVD to the store the next day she didn't trust me to chose another movie for weeks.

Avalon is truly awful. While some people seem to like it for some sort of artistic value, I found it to be pretentious and ultimately devoid of value. It takes some great ideas and ignores them entirely. Any movie which wanted to subsequently explore those ideas which Avalon discarded would be decried as a rip off and probably sued. That's probably the worst thing about Avalon. Do not watch it.

Not the Original Directors Vision!
Here we go again. MIRAMAX basterdizes another movie. MIRAMAX tends to buy the rights to these great movies & then changes them. I've seen the original AVALON so I can comment on what's been changed. First, the original washed out color of the film is replaced with an deep orange. This really ruins some of the original scenes.At least some colors in the original movie came out. MIRAMAX has ruined the directors vision. If you have this DVD see the extras on the cinamatography & SFX. At least there you'll see the original color that was intended by director Mamoru Oshii.The 2nd thing that's been added is the additoinal dialogue. The main chracter explains the game after her 1st victory. This has been added by MIRAMAX. And lastly at the end or character explains it all or tries to.All this was added to the movie. The directors intention is to make you guess & ponder this wonderful story. But MIRAMAX has decided for you. About the only thing I'll give them credit is the great English dub. I also enjoyed the extras. I have to give this 3 stars. If you can write a protest letter to MIRAMAX. It's so sad how a american Distributor can tamper & ruin a directors vision. I'd recommend getting a foreign version of this movie if you can.

excellent
This movie is 10 times better than the matrix. The story and philosophy of this movie is excellent. Highly recomended. ... Read more