Patlabor: The Movie (1989)
"Kidô keisatsu patorebâ: Gekijô-ban" (original title)

A mysterious suicide and strange robot malfunctions are clues to a devastating sabotage plot that Special Vehicle Unit 2 must stop.

Director:

Mamoru Oshii

Writers:

Kazunori Itô, Masami Yûki (comic)

Stars:

Toshio Furukawa, Mîna Tominaga, Ryûnosuke Ôbayashi

Cast

Credited cast:
Toshio Furukawa	...	Asuma Shinohara (voice)
Mîna Tominaga	...	Noa Izumi (voice)
Ryûnosuke Ôbayashi	...	Kiichi Gotoh (voice)
Yoshiko Sakakibara	...	Shinobu Nagumo (voice)
Yô Inoue	...	Kanuka Clancy (voice)
Michihiro Ikemizu	...	Isao Ohta (voice)
Issei Futamata	...	Mikiyasu Shinshi (voice)
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Shigeru Chiba	...	Shigeo Shiba (voice)
William Dufris	...	Kataoka (voice) (as William Dufries)
Lisa Enochs	...	Kanuka Clancy (voice)
Doug Erholtz	...	Asuma Shinohara (voice)
Blain Fairman	...	Sakaki (voice) (as Blair Fairman)
Don Fellows	...	Jitsuyama (voice)
Michael Fitzpatrick	...	Hiromi (voice)
Briony Glassco	...	Noa (voice)

Storyline

A mysterious suicide and a series of unmanned robot run-aways sparks off a Police investigation into the suspicious software on-board thousands of industrial robots around Tokyo. Step by step, the police find themselves tangled up by the web of a perfect crime which awaits the approaching Typhoon to activate thousands of virus affected robots. As time runs out, Asuma and his team must complete a task that is doomed to be a failure before the Typhoon lands Tokyo.

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Plot Keywords:

robot | suicide | police | sabotage | giant robot | 

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Genres:

Animation | Action | Crime | Drama | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Official Sites:

BandaiVisual [us] TechTV

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese English German

Release Date:

15 July 1989 (Japan)

Also Known As:

Patlabor 1

Company Credits

Production Co:

Headgear, Studio DEEN, Sunrise

Technical Specs

Runtime:

100 min

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Did You Know?

Trivia

(At 1:25:20) Behind Shinohara in the background, under his hand, the screen says "OMG".

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Connections

Followed by WXIII: Patlabor the Movie 3 (2002)

User Reviews

incredible animated movie

Japanese animation has become very popular in the past few years. Somehow, it also gained the notoriety for "extreme" sex and violence, though it's a misconception that all Japanese animation is about that. Yet, animation in general is viewed as a kids only fare.

I recommend anyone to watch Patlabor: the movie. It has a very mature storyline. When I mean mature, I meant well-thought out story that can leave you thinking.

In the future, giant industrial utility robots called labors are used throughout Japan. Those in the law enforcement department use labors called Patlabors (patrol labors). Lately, there are reports of labors running amuck on its own. From this point we follow the heroes in a detective like story.

There are no nudity, violence is pretty tame compared to your half-hour dose of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (a series also a byproduct of Japan, I know but I'm not here to discuss my distaste for the Rangers) TV show. What we have is a straight-forward mystery as the story unravels what is going on. It also explores about man and technology and how it's like the Tower of Babel in biblical literature.

The movie is based on the tv show and comic. I only got to see a few episodes of the show. The movie, like the show, do not have the robots dominating the story, thus focusing more on the human characters. Watching the movie, I almost feel like I'm watching a PG/PG-13 live-action movie. Akira and Ghost in the Shell also have a deep story in them, it's not as involving perhaps they were covered so much cinematic effects (and sex and violence?). Patlabor blew me away in that it successfully simply told an honest-to-goodness story without being covered in so much effects.

The verdict: 5 of 5 stars.