My Favourite Movies: Ghost in the Shell

The Year is 2029. An elite police team from Section 9 is tasked with hunting down a dangerous hacker known only as The Puppet Master for his (or her) ability to hack into human implants and control them for his/her own ends. No one knows anything about his/her real identity except that s/hes probably American. In order to fight this kind of crime the police themselves need to be state-of-the-art with cybernetic implants and, as they become injured in the line of duty, more and more high-tech body replacements. The question they ask themselves: Are they even human anymore?

As the investigation gets closer to discovering the Puppet Master’s identity political interference from the Foreign Office’s paramilitary team in Section 6 increases. What exactly is Section 6’s interest in the affair and why are they spending resources trying to keep Section 9 away from potential witnesses. Are Section 6 and the Puppet Master somehow connected and if so why? When Section 9 find themselves in a firefight with top-of-the-range military technology they know for sure that the stakes are very high indeed. But Major Motoko Kusanagi has no idea how high the stakes will be for her personally.

Even since seeing Akira I have had a deep affection for all things Manga and Anime. Although the technology has moved on in leaps and bounds since this movie first appeared in 1995 which means that the animation can seem rather crude at times what actually sells this is the storyline which is quite superb. OK, there’s the usual Japanese need to explain things during pauses between fight scenes which can seem somewhat stilted when translated into English but that is more than forgivable when everything else is taken into account. The whole thing is basically about what it means to be human or sentient. How much of the body can be replaced with synthetics before you (or others) see you as a machine? 50%, 75%, 90%? If your brain is the only organic part of your body are you still human? Do cyborgs have souls? Conversely, if a fully functioning AI (for want of a better phrase) is downloaded into a synthetic body and demands political asylum would it even be considered? If it passed the Turing Test – or a futuristic equivalent – could it be considered sentient and therefore have rights?

Not many Western movies struggle with these kinds of philosophical issues (becoming more urgent with every passing year) but Japanese cinema in particular – or at least sections of – seem obsessed by the idea. This is hardly surprising from a society so drenched in high technology but still the whole thing is deeply fascinating. Of course this is no dry exposition in lecture form. These ideas are brought up, questioned and discussed in passing during dramatic shoot-outs with ‘puppets’, hacked robots and goons from Section 6. There’s plenty of blood, a bit of nudity – though does cyborg nudity count in this case? – and lots of double dealing and double crossing to keep everyone guessing just exactly what is going on and who can be trusted and all this in just 83 minutes! If you haven’t seen this before but enjoyed Akira, or if you want to see what all the fuss was about back in the mid-90’s then this is definitely something you should check out. If you’re in to SF or a bit of deep thinking you’ll definitely enjoy it.