Cheap Ghost in the Shell (DVD) (Mamoru Oshii) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Ghost in the Shell

an astounding vision
This is an incredibly conceived animation. I'm intirgued by how it has been dubbed into english, there are lots of blank spaces in the dialogue and stillness in the image that I'm guessing might come from a more involved Japanese original. The effect is that sometimes the pace looses dynamism, All in all though its an astounding vision and what really mkes it is the depth of the surround sound track, alongside some really great drawing of course.

Multi-layered film that demands serious consideration
In Mamoru Oshii's outstanding Ghost in the Shell (1995), the director/writer gave himself little time, at less than 90 minutes, to explore the many questions he raised in that script. With his long-awaited sequel, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, he succeeds in answering many of these questions whilst at the same time giving us many more to ponder, in a film that, though flawed, deserves a 5 star rating. <
> <
>Rather like a Disney animation, the film can be viewed on more than one level by more than one audience. On the surface it is a sumptuously-animated film in which a fairly conventional who-done-it plot unfolds; robots are murdering humans, and a crime specialist is brought in to solve the case. Period. We have already seen equivalent plots in films such as Blade Runner or I, Robot and this film has nothing new to add to the basic idea. However Oshii's world is far more disturbing and complex below the surface. He subverts the ending of the film which, could be taken as a triumph of good over evil. However, when distinctions between robot and human become blurred the central notions of good and evil in the film fall down. He pulls other tricks to undermine our assumptions about humanity; at one point the main cop character puts a coat over a robot to hide its nakedness; another time a robotic character philosophises over the meaning of existence, whilst chain-smoking. It is in the director's treatment of the paradox of what it means to be human that the film's value lies, not the superficial plot. <
> <
>Characterisation is a little scimpy (with the notable exception of the depiction of Oshii's own basset hound, which is drawn with clear devotion) but visually the film is stunning. Oshii is one of the few directors able to practice the delicate art of inactivity on screen. He is not scared to abandon the plot for minutes on end to luxuriate in, for example, an extended arial shot of a city, or to dwell on a completely motionless face whilst we register its owner's emotional state, or to allow his main characters, motionless on the screen for what seems like ages, to quote western philosophical and religious texts. None of these scenes moves the plot forwards and yet the film would be immeasurably poorer without them. <
> <
>Too many sequels to outstanding films try to provide glib answers to the issues raised in the original and most fail by this approach; examples such as 2010 and Matrix Reloaded spring to mind. With this film Oshii has avoided this pitfall and given us a rare sequal, that takes the theme of the original and finds something fresh to say. <
> <
>In summary, the film deserves a 5 star rating, but I think that it falls short of greatness. <
>