In the year 2032, Batô, a cyborg detective for the anti-terrorist unit Public Security Section 9, investigates the case of a female robot--one created solely for sexual pleasure--who slaughtered her owner.
A secret military project endangers Neo-Tokyo when it turns a biker gang member into a rampaging psychic psychopath who can only be stopped by two teenagers and a group of psychics.
A pop singer gives up her career to become an actress, but she slowly goes insane when she starts being stalked by an obsessed fan and what seems to be a ghost of her past.
When a machine that allows therapists to enter their patients' dreams is stolen, all Hell breaks loose. Only a young female therapist, Paprika, can stop it.
Director:
Satoshi Kon
Stars:
Megumi Hayashibara,
Tôru Emori,
Katsunosuke Hori
In the near future, Major Mira Killian is the first of her kind: A human saved from a terrible crash, who is cyber-enhanced to be a perfect soldier devoted to stopping the world's most dangerous criminals.
A.D. 2034. It has been two years since Motoko Kusanagi left Section 9. Togusa is now the new leader of the team, that has considerably increased its appointed personnel. The expanded new ... See full summary »
A vagabond swordsman is aided by a beautiful ninja girl and a crafty spy in confronting a demonic clan of killers - with a ghost from his past as their leader - who are bent on overthrowing the Tokugawa Shogunate.
It is the year 2029. Technology has advanced so far that cyborgs are commonplace. In addition, human brains can connect to the internet directly. Major Motoko Kasunagi is an officer in Section 9, an elite, secretive police division that deals with special operations, including counter terrorism and cyber crime. She is currently on the trail of the Puppet Master, a cyber criminal who hacks into the brains of cyborgs in order to obtain information and to commit other crimes.Written by
grantss
There are multiple references to Oshii's earlier film "Angel's Egg" in the final climax. The tree of life in a room filled with fossils is taken directly from Angel's Egg. Also the feathers are in the climax of both films. See more »
Goofs
During the montage through the city, where there's an ally way in a shopping district, one character is drawn small to appear as though they are inside a building in the distance. However, the character is layered over a doorway rather than behind it, making it appear as though he's very small. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Title Card:
In the near future: Corporate networks reach out to the stars, electrons and light flow throughout the universe. - The advance of computerisation, however, has not yet wiped out nations and ethnic groups.
Dispatcher:
[on radio]
To all units: Code 2-0-8 in district C-13, Newport City. Air space is closed. I repeat...
See more »
Alternate Versions
The original Japanese version has the song "Reincarnation" played over the ending credits. This song was replaced with "One Minute Warning" by Passengers (a collaboration between U2 and Brian Eno) for the English version. See more »
Ghost in the Shell is a masterpiece. I would go so far as to say that it's the second best science fiction film I've ever seen (behind 2001, of course), but no one knows about it. I find it terribly unfortunate that the only American viewers familiar with Ghost in the Shell are anime fans, many of whom overlook the film's complexity and see only its nudity and violence. The movie kind of gets in its own way-- within the first five minutes we see the heroine's nude body as well as a very messy head-exploding scene, and many of the viewers who would otherwise end up enthralled by the film's abundant style and intelligence immediately dismiss it as exploitative anime trash. Every time I show this movie to non-anime fans I have to explain beforehand that Ghost in the Shell is a serious work of science fiction and that everything in it, including the adult content, is part of the point the movie makes about where our society is headed.
The film is stylish, artistic, and beautiful. Masamune Shirow's stunningly believable vision of the future makes the jump from manga to anime remarkably well. As brilliant as the comics are, I really prefer the film version, which eliminates the nearly pornographic T&A (the film has nudity but it's clearly not meant to be titillating) and all of the exaggerated comic relief which only detracted from the manga in my opinion. The film's action sequences are strikingly different from the overly stylized symphonies of destruction seen in most action films. Gunfire, martial arts combat, and car chases are depicted exactly as they would occur in the real world-- without fast music or Armageddon-style hyper-editing or any of the needless cinematic baggage we've come to expect. But it's the movie's ideas that make it great, particularly in the last half hour, when thoughtful viewers learn what this story is all about-- the emergence of a new kind of life form, an intelligent and self-aware intelligence that can live indefinitely without ever inhabiting a physical body. The film argues that this will occur within the next thirty years, and the superbly ambiguous ending inspires us to come up with our own ideas of what will happen to humanity once this new life form begins to reproduce. This is filmmaking that should be seen and discussed.
And now the disclaimer. All of the above comments refer to the subtitled Japanese version of the film, NOT the English dub. Simply put, the dub ruins everything. A good example is Kusanagi's wry comment at the very beginning of the film. An officer who is communicating with Kusanagi through a kind of electronic telepathy tells her there's a lot of static in her brain. In the original Japanese version (as well as in the manga) she replies that "It's that time of the month," but in the dub her comment is inexplicably changed to "Must be a loose wire." It's completely insane-- do they think that, in a film with considerable nudity and graphic violence, people are going to be offended by a PMS innuendo? The whole movie is filled with such intelligence-insulting changes; please do yourself a favor and watch the subtitled version.
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Ghost in the Shell is a masterpiece. I would go so far as to say that it's the second best science fiction film I've ever seen (behind 2001, of course), but no one knows about it. I find it terribly unfortunate that the only American viewers familiar with Ghost in the Shell are anime fans, many of whom overlook the film's complexity and see only its nudity and violence. The movie kind of gets in its own way-- within the first five minutes we see the heroine's nude body as well as a very messy head-exploding scene, and many of the viewers who would otherwise end up enthralled by the film's abundant style and intelligence immediately dismiss it as exploitative anime trash. Every time I show this movie to non-anime fans I have to explain beforehand that Ghost in the Shell is a serious work of science fiction and that everything in it, including the adult content, is part of the point the movie makes about where our society is headed.
The film is stylish, artistic, and beautiful. Masamune Shirow's stunningly believable vision of the future makes the jump from manga to anime remarkably well. As brilliant as the comics are, I really prefer the film version, which eliminates the nearly pornographic T&A (the film has nudity but it's clearly not meant to be titillating) and all of the exaggerated comic relief which only detracted from the manga in my opinion. The film's action sequences are strikingly different from the overly stylized symphonies of destruction seen in most action films. Gunfire, martial arts combat, and car chases are depicted exactly as they would occur in the real world-- without fast music or Armageddon-style hyper-editing or any of the needless cinematic baggage we've come to expect. But it's the movie's ideas that make it great, particularly in the last half hour, when thoughtful viewers learn what this story is all about-- the emergence of a new kind of life form, an intelligent and self-aware intelligence that can live indefinitely without ever inhabiting a physical body. The film argues that this will occur within the next thirty years, and the superbly ambiguous ending inspires us to come up with our own ideas of what will happen to humanity once this new life form begins to reproduce. This is filmmaking that should be seen and discussed.
And now the disclaimer. All of the above comments refer to the subtitled Japanese version of the film, NOT the English dub. Simply put, the dub ruins everything. A good example is Kusanagi's wry comment at the very beginning of the film. An officer who is communicating with Kusanagi through a kind of electronic telepathy tells her there's a lot of static in her brain. In the original Japanese version (as well as in the manga) she replies that "It's that time of the month," but in the dub her comment is inexplicably changed to "Must be a loose wire." It's completely insane-- do they think that, in a film with considerable nudity and graphic violence, people are going to be offended by a PMS innuendo? The whole movie is filled with such intelligence-insulting changes; please do yourself a favor and watch the subtitled version.