"Renaissance" - French B&W animation (March 2006)
 

"Renaissance" a film by Christian Volckman. Check out the teaser trailer, looks Sin City-ish...

http://www.renaissance-lefilm.com/accueil.htm

Synopsis (translated)

2054. In a labyrinthine Paris where everything is controlled and filmed, Ilona Tatsuiev, a young and beautfiful scientist prodigy, is kidnapped. Avalon, the firm that employs Ilona, pressures a controversial cop named Karos into trying to find her. Karos agrees but quickly realizes that he's being followed and that others are trying to get to Ilona before he does. Finding Ilona becomes vital. Without knowing it, the young woman is at the center of an occult war which could determine the fate of humanity. She is the key to the "Renaissance Protocol".

Looks like a Casshern remake to me.

The English trailer is on Apple website.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/miramax/renaissance/

Casshern was more of an anime - this looks a lot more like a noir.

And it looks great - I hope it's actually as good as it looks...

When's this coming out anyways?
Is it gettig an earlier release in Europe than here? I'd love to get an early R2 dvd of it, but I'd much rather watch this on the biggest movie screen possible.

I caught this film a couple of weeks back and damn it sucked. Although it looked great, the style wears off very fast. It isn't helped by the unnecessarily convoluted plot. There were moments where I was literally laughing at the dialogue and situations (something I never do) as they were so stupid and derivative. I would've thought animation would be the one place where they could could give us an epic and unique look at a futuristic world but this film is so limited in what it tries to achieve it appears as though the filmmakers just pointed at Blade Runner and tried to copy what they saw but without any of the style or intricacies of what made that world so great. Avoid.

I should have the HD-DVD on my doorstep in a few weeks (from France)

I finally saw this in the theater last night. I didn't think it sucked, but it is definitely a case of style over substance, not unlike Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow in that respect.

Fincher Fan isn't wrong, though...dialogue is stilted, characters are one-dimensional, and several situations are stupid (especially the impossible "Code Black" rescue) and derivative. For me, the gorgeous visuals and excellent score outweighed the pedestrian plot, but I can appreciate that not everyone can be so forgiving.