1st Review of "Ghost in the Shell" sequel, "Innocence"
 

http://www.screendaily.com/story.asp...d=17014&r=true

A follow-up to Oshii’s 1995 international hit Ghost In The Shell, Innocence revisits Ghost’s future world, in which cyborgs have souls. But we are now nine years further along in the digital revolution and this time Oshii has a far bigger budget at his command. Thus, by the technical standards of the earlier film, Innocence marks a huge advance.

Together with the staff at Production IG, Oshii has created a world of astonishing depth and presence, one that fully realises the potential of animation to bring to life the world of its director’s imagination in all its hallucinatory complexity. Sometimes there is far too much information on the screen, visual and otherwise, to take in at one go.

This will delight Oshii’s many devotees abroad, who will see the film again and again to revel in its detailed imagery and figure out its deep think dialogue. The larger public, who think that the height of animated excellence is Finding Nemo, will probably be baffled. As with Ghost, prospects are brighter on video and DVD, though Japanese anime fans will form long lines outside urban theatres screening the film. There is also a strong chance it will play one of the forthcoming summer festivals outside Japan: Oshii’s live-action Avalon played outside competition in official selection at Cannes in 2001.

I can't wait to see this one. Ghost of the Shell is one of my favorite movies.

I really want to see this! I am a fan of the first film and the original Shirow manga. It's interesting that Studio Ghibli and Buena Vista are listed among the many co-producers. And it looks like Dreamworks has the distribution rights outside of Asia. Anyone know when this film is supposed to be released in Japan?

I watched Ghost in the Shell a few years ago - I bought the DVD without seeing it first because of its reputation. First viewing, I thought it was okay, but nothing really special. But I made the mistake of watching it dubbed that time, because I had a friend over who wouldn't watch subtitles. The second time, I watched it in its original language, and WHAT A DIFFERENCE! The movie is awesome that way, and a test case to those who say "dubbing doesn't matter in animation!" - Bah! Switch back and forth between the dub and the original language version on that film with the subtitles on and see just what a difference it makes. It's like a different movie - the English version is just a kids movie, the Japanese is much more.

what a tease!

Let's hope Dreamwork's Go Fish! animation division would release this stateside. (ala Milleninum Actress). I bet you that the Big Apple Anime Filmshowcase might include a screening of this, if a US studio doesn't pick this up by the Fall.

Considering that Ghost In The Shell is still considered one of the archetypal anime films, only second to Akira, I think the distribution of this film is almost assured.

I wanna see this but I'm not overly excited. I though the first film was a terrible adaptation of the comic and a terrible movie on its own. Still, I really hope this one is good.

Despite thinking that Ghost in the Shell is kind of boring (I've watched it twice), I really dug the animation, and this looks even more incredible, so I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Brian

Oshii is an artistic genius...the way he mixes 2-D and 3-D animation is second-to-none.

I only hope that he doesn't go TOO far into the obscure end of things in the story, because these days he ends up with stuff like Avalon which I thought was pathetic. But then again, he made Angel's Egg--talk about obscure, yet it's one of the best films I've ever seen and yet almost completely unknown Stateside.

Innocence is playing already in Japan.There is 2 more movie.One from the makers of Mononoke and another is a title called Steel Boy I think.This are big releases

Animation and art are fantastic in these movies but they are soooo boring, Appleseed looks better to me. Steamboy is from Katsuhiro Otomo and looks fantastic

I've yet to really enjoy a Shirow adaptation; the closest I've gotten is Ghost In The Shell: Standalone Complex (the TV series). I think the best thing to do is to view the Oshii films as a completely separate entity from the manga, or face grave disappointment :)