Shell Game

Even though we lived in Japan for 2-3 years, I'll admit we aren't as up on manga/anime as some. So, we wound up watching the live Ghost in the Shell (2017) without having read the manga, seen the anime or even the TV show. So, sue us.

It famously stars Scarlett Johansson as Major, a cyborg with no memory of her life before she had her body replaced by mechanics. She lives in a futuristic city of skyscrapers and giant holographic billboards (often huge grandmother types, giving the city a homey feel). She works in a militarized police unit under Beat Takeshi (Zatoichi, Johnny Mnemonic). Her fighting style is to strip to her shell (no skin, she's a cyborg) and leap off the nearest tall building. She lands fully camouflaged and firing.

In the first fight, she is up against robot geishas who have had their minds taken over by hackers - cyberterrorists. This will be the major conflict in the story, but it's really about Major's past. Who was she before her body, and even her brain, were rebuilt?

Of course, there was a bit of a scandal (kerfuffle, really) about casting Johansson in an Asian role. Now, since all SF movies are required to star Scarlett Johansson, this is just silly. Besides, we always felt that manga character designs tend to look vaguely Euro, and Johansson seems to pull off a very anime style of movement, somehow. Besides, she is a complete rebuild. Who knows what she looked like before she got her shell.

When the movie reveals that, it does it with a good deal more sensitivity then we expected. The whole cyborg-human identity crisis story line is done well - it doesn't hit you over the head, but isn't obscure or hard to follow. But that's not the best part.

The best part is visual. This is pure eye candy. It pays homage to Bladerunner, or at least shares influences. Very cyberpunk, very lovely.