Metropolis (2001)

Kenichi and his uncle Shunsaku Ban must find the mystery behind robot girl Tima.

Director:

Rintaro

Writers:

Osamu Tezuka (comic book), Katsuhiro Ôtomo (screenplay)

Stars:

Toshio Furukawa, Scott Weinger, Yuka Imoto

1 win & 4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Yuka Imoto	...	Tima (voice)
Kei Kobayashi	...	Kenichi (voice)
Kôki Okada	...	Rock (voice)
Tarô Ishida	...	Duke Red (voice)
Kôsei Tomita	...	Hige-Oyaji (voice)
Norio Wakamoto	...	Pero (voice)
Junpei Takiguchi	...	Dr. Laughton (voice)
Takeshi Aono	...	Ponkotz (voice)
Masaru Ikeda	...	President Boon (voice)
Shun Yashiro	...	Notarlin (voice)
Toshio Furukawa	...	Skunk (voice)
Shigeru Chiba	...	Lamp (voice)
Masashi Ebara	...	Ham Egg (voice)
Takaya Hashi	...	Lyon (voice)
Norihiro Inoue	...	Atlas (voice)

Storyline

Metropolis is a visually stunning, rich, and memorable pleasure. It's contributors have brought us other classics such as Astroboy and Akira. The story takes place in the muti-leveled, fascinating, megalopolis called Metropolis. Metropolis is loosely ruled by Duke Red, who is close to presenting his ultimate work, an advanced AI robot girl named Tima. His son; however, is an opponent of AI and resents Tima. Tima finds herself deep within the labyrinth of Meteoplolis. She befriends the kind son of a police officer and begins exploring her new world. When Duke Red's son separates this new friendship, he puts much more at risk than anyone thought possible.

---

Plot Keywords:

robot | synthetic human | city | future | based on comic book | 

---

Taglines:

Welcome to Metropolis

---

Genres:

Animation | Adventure | Drama | Sci-Fi | Thriller

---

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for violence and images of destruction

Did You Know?

Trivia

A total of 150,000 animation cells were used.

---

Goofs

Rock's costume disappears in the Throne of Power scene.

---

Quotes

Tima: [Tima has just discovered that she is a robot, not a human] I am an artificial human. A machine created to conquer the world and destroy it.

---

Alternate Versions

The US Release does not subtitle the word "kuso" (which means "shit") at the beginning, while strangely enough, it is subtitled later in the film. (Japanese langauge version only)

---

Connections

References Citizen Kane (1941)

---

Soundtracks

St. James Infirmary
Words and Music by Irving Mills
Performed by Atsuki Kimura

User Reviews

One of my all time favourites

I'm not a big fan of Manga I must admit. The movies I've seen have been few and far between and while I certainly enjoyed the likes of Ninja Scroll, Akira and Ghost In The Shell, I've never had much urge to seek out a really wide knowledge of the genre. That being said though, Metropolis has to rank as one of my top five films of all time, not just the animated ones.

Telling the story of a far future world where humans and robots exist alongside one another, it focuses on the adventures of a Private Investigator and his son visiting the city for the first time and hunting down a missing robot called Tima. And what a city it is! The animation, simply put, is stunning. The epic scope of this vast urban world is beautifully captured on screen. It is richly detailed and lit up like a fantastic world of colour, like a fine piece of dramatic art that has come to life. The animation on the characters meanwhile is no less amazing, it is more akin to French than Japanese in stylistic terms, but is still very detailed and beautifully realised.

But this is no piece of aesthetic beauty with nothing to back it up as the storyline is truly gripping. As the boy befriends a young girl, both of them unaware that she is in fact an experimental robot, you find yourself getting swept up in their plight and they have just as much, if not more depth and emotion than any real-life actor's work.

Come the climax, you'll be simultaneously thrilled and left emotionally stunned. This is a magnificent film, I can't praise it enough.

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [Japan] Sony

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese French German Italian Spanish English Russian

Release Date:

25 January 2002 (USA)

Also Known As:

Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis

Box Office

Budget:

$15,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$84,660, 27 January 2002

Gross USA:

$722,932

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$4,035,192

Company Credits

Production Co:

Bandai Visual Company, DENTSU Music And Entertainment, Imagica Corp.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

108 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1