Ghost Story

Since we watched the live-action ScarJo version, I felt that we should watch the anime Ghost in the Shell (1996). Sadly, I think we kind of liked the live version.

They both start more or less the same way, with the Major, a cyborg police officer, stripping to her plastic skin and diving off a skyscraper roof. Naked, she can use the camouflage function of her skin. And falling off the building, she can crash through the window of the conference room, where a VIP is being arrested. It turns out he was being controlled through his cybernetic brain extensions by an entity known as the Puppetmaster.

Of course, the rest of the movie will be a pursuit of this Puppetmaster. And, of course, this will be difficult, since anyone you catch will turn out to be only another puppet. You can’t trust anyone’s identity, maybe not even your own. The major herself is mostly electronic, and doesn’t even know who she was before she became the Major.

There is a lot less of the Major’s search for her identity in this movie than the ScarJo version. There is also more about the team, and less about the Major. Overall, I found the plot hard to follow (OK, maybe I was just sleepy), in the way I sometimes do with Asian movies - they do less handholding than I expect. But I will say this: This is a gorgeously visual movie. Some scenes just stop and look around the city of the future, long meditative takes of a rainy city street, not moving the plot at all. Those were my favorite parts.