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For this entry I am going to review The Red Spectacles, a low budget Japanese live action film directed by Mamoru Oshii. Before I go into it, however, I think a background on the director is first needed.Mamoru Oshii is an eccentric in the very truest sense of the word. Seen in interviews as quiet and withdrawn, he lives alone in the countryside, with only his basset hounds to keep him company. His eccentric nature and unique worldview translate into a very unique batch of films. At best, his films can be mind bending philosophical works concerning human existence and the nature of reality, at worst pretentious and unintelligible bore-fests. The former being films such as Ghost in the Shell and Avalon, and the latter being films such as Stray Dog and Innocence. He is at his best, I think, when working together with screenwriter Kazunori Itô and composer Kenji Kawai. His admirers range from Kubrick to the Wachowski brothers, and his anime films continue to be widely seen and talked about in Japan and abroad. The following film, The Red Spectacles, is one of his earlier films and his first foray into live action territory.This movie is the first of Oshii's movies to feature the famed Kerberos corps, which are also featured in Stray Dog and Jin Roh. They are an elite Japanese police force, and at the beginning of the movie they have gone renegade and rebelled from their fascist government. The main character and his two comrades are in a warehouse and are attacked by many armed men, a battle that they win but only the main character, Koichi, is uninjured and able to go on. He vows to return some day for them and then runs to a helicopter that is waiting for him and escapes the country. After three years of waiting, he returns and his search begins.From this quick summary you may have the impression that this is a fairly normal action movie, but that is actually very far from the truth. A lot of the movie is this sort of weird, surreal slapstick humor, which is a definite departure from Oshii's usual style. There are a lot of over the top scenes and exaggerated acting reminiscent of silent film era, perhaps a conscious throwback on Oshii's part. Most of the film is spent either laughing or saying "what the hell?!" in equal measure. There is also some symbolism and political themes that are pretty interesting to think about. I also really enjoyed the ending because it puts a new mind bending perspective on everything that came previously in the movie. The music score however is somewhat cheap sounding and some of it is reused by Kawai in Patlabor and Avalon, but it still gets the job done I guess.All in all, this is a weird, interesting little flick that is best for people already familiar with Oshii's work and who are curious to see his earlier low budget live action stuff. If you are new to Oshii, a movie like Ghost in the Shell or Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer would probably be a better starting point.
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