#39: AKIRA

 

STARRING: (Voice actors) Mitsuo Iwata, Nozomu Sasaki, Nami Koyama, Taro Ishida, Tesshō Genda, Derek Smith, Mizhuo Suzuki, Tatsuhiko Nakamura, Fukue Itō and Kazuhiro Shindō. Based on Akira manga by Katsuhiro Otomo. Screenplay by Katsuhiro Otomo and Iao Hashimoto. Produced by Ryōhei Suzuki and Shunzō Katō. Directed by Katsuhiro Otomo. Cinematography Katsuji Misawa. Edited by Takeshi Seyama. Music by Shōji Yamashiro. Budget $5.7 million. Boxoffice $49 million. Running time 124 minutes. Originally released in 1988.

All together now, "CANADA!!!!"

Outside the oeuvre of Studio Ghibli and K-Pop Demon Hunters, Akira and is perhaps the most famous anime of all-times, it's certainly the most influential and epoch making. The story involving mutant albino midgets, mind altering drugs, Japanese biker gangs, covert military organisations and telekinesis would take longer to successfully synopsis than to watch so you'll have to trust me on this. This is fantastic! An absolute thrill ride, a bat-shit bonkers, relentless kinetic, roaring masterclass in animation. 

Go and see this if you can up there on the big screen and absolutely marvel at the fact that this bad boy is hand drawn! There's not a shred of CGI for a million miles. The animation is perfection itself, gasp at the motorbike chase through the city, the scale and ambition of it all, the pounding soundtrack and spot how many times you've seen this film ripped off by other pale imitators, live-action and anime alike. This didn't just rip up the book on what an animated film could do, it also wrote a whole new book on animation and then ripped that one up too! 

For years Hollywood has unsuccessfully tried to make a live-action remake of this film and failed, and for the simple reason that it can't be done. This does things with paint and ink that look sublime. Its success lies in the fact it's approached as if it was live-action hi-octane action film, with machine gun rapid editing, dazzling cinematography, and a pulse pumping soundtrack. Plus, it's without doubt one of the greatest science fiction films ever made! 

It's cultural impact cannot be understated. It's gone on to influence films, animation, comics, video games and popular culture and was the spearhead in the explosion of Japanese popular culture in the west back in the late 1980s and heralded the surge of popularity in anime and all thing Asian.

The funny thing is I've written all that from memory as I've not yet been to the cinema to see it. In fact I'm off tomorrow night, so I'm going to sign off here and return post film and conclude my review. Will be I still feel the same about it? 

BY GOD THAT WAS IMPRESSIVE! I'd forgotten the neon lights, the music, the violence, the animation, the vision of Otomo and the sheer energy of it all. Oh, and that amazing motorbike of Kanada, that sideways skid, so copied and imitated, this is a 38 year old animated movie that makes a mockery of most of the present CGI animated movies that get thrown at us, and Hollywood has never made an animated film this adult. It's lost none of its power, it truly is a technical marvel. 

10/10