By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Shinji Aramaki
Starring: Ai Kobayashi | Jûrôta Kosugi | Yuki Matsuoka
Original language title: Appurushîdo
Country: japan
Year: 2004
Running time: 101
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401233/combined
Michael says: “APPLESEED is a action-packed anime film in the science fiction genre. Based on the comic by Masamune Shirow (GHOST IN THE SHELL), APPLESEED takes place on earth, far in the future, where much of the planet is involved with war. However one city has become a self-described Utopia, where man lives in peace. What is unique about this city is that half of the population is made up of bioroids, a new life forms that seem to be some sort of clones. Deunan is a soldier fighting in the outer fringes who is selected by the city’s ES.W.A.T. team as a promising candidate. What Deunan doesn’t know is that her part in the upcoming political/ethical drama is much more orchestrated. She is reunited with a former lover and fellow-soldier, Bioresos, who lost his body during battle and is now a cyborg. Together, as political twists unfold, they may be the only two beings capable of maintaining peace in this utopian society.
“APPLESEED is one of the most remarkable looking animes that I have seen. The artwork is breathtaking, particularly some of the cityscapes, the technology and the many action scenes. For the first 10 minutes or so, I feared this was going to be a film filled with action and not much else. While there is a lot of breathtaking action (which utilizes some very effective MATRIX-like slow-motion effects) there is a lot of humanity and character development as well. There are some neat twists too, as characters’ allegiances are slowly revealed, and not always as you expect.
“If you’re a fan of science fiction or anime, APPLESEED should not be missed. It’s an exciting, entertaining, and thought-provoking story, with a strong heroine and some truly amazing animation. 4 cats
“This film was shown at the 2004 Boston Fantastic Film Festival”
Carolyn says: “I tend to be picky about the anime and sci-fi stories I like and this one, which falls into both categories, worked
for me. I don’t know what it was, but I got connections and references that I might normally miss. The storyline was a relevant plot about humanity and world domination through the guise of a man-machine interaction story. It did have a chore of wrapping up loose ends in the last 30 minutes which worked okay in this particular case. 4 cats”