Mamoru Oshii Movies

A handful of gorgeous women live their lives on the edge in the pursuit of a square meal in this outrageous fusion of action and comedy from Japan. A live-action follow-up to the successful anime feature Tachiguishi Retsuden (aka The Amazing Lives Of The Fast Food Grifters), this feature features six episodes from six different directors, in which gals living outside the law use their charm and their fighting skills to their advantage. A lovely and mysterious woman (Mabuki Ando) beguiles her former beau who now runs a restaurant, a female gunslinger (Miki Mizuno) shows no mercy in Old Arizona, a pop singer (Yuko Ogura) discovers the dark underside of the Japanese music biz in the Seventies, a remarkable story lurks behind a lady's tattoo, a lovely woman will do just about anything to get what she wants from a man (and it isn't love), and a band of interstellar vixens battle for victory and fried chicken. Shin Onna Tachiguishi Retsuden (aka Eat and Run: 6 Beautiful Grifters) was an official selection at the 2008 PiFan World Fantastic Cinema Film Festival in South Korea. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Mamoru Oshii's Tachiguishi Retsuden attempts to convey the entire dietary history of Japan via CG animation. ("Tachiguishi" refers to the Japanese concept of "stand and eat," and includes not only traditional hamburger joints, but indigenous beef-and-rice stands found only on Japanese soil.) The underlying concept of the motion picture rests on Oshii's endless quest for the "perfect fast food," and revolves around his conviction that one can shed light on lifestyle and culture by evaluating what individuals consume during a particular period of time. The director thus uses dietary intake as a lens into the Japanese culture, mindset, and way of life -- and as a context for interpreting Japanese history, from the post-WWII era through the late '80s. The "Fast Food Grifters" of the title (who appeared, fleetingly, in the director's previous works, such as Urusei Yatsura and The Red Spectacles) are those who devise crafty means for getting away without paying for "tachiguishi." They embody the heroes of Oshii's film and reflect his satirical view of Japanese society. Aesthetically, because Oshii found both live action and traditional animation incapable of fully exploiting the film's subject, he chose an alternate, third route. The director employs a highly unusual combination of elements that the press release refers to as "3D-CG recreation of a documentary drama of a fictional post-war history staged in a small theater and performed as a simple paper puppet show." In other words, Oshii (notorious as a visual maverick) grounds the motion picture in mockumentary stylistics and approach, but even the seemingly "authentic" archival film clips that he includes are in fact artificial, staged, and created for the sake of the film. He also employs a technique called "superlivemation," whereby real people were photographed, the photographs were digitally processed, and the images were then animated -- a process that took over 20 steps, but yielded a thoroughly unprecedented visual style. Oshii adapted the work from his own novel. It stars Kenji Kawai, Katsuya Terada, Shinji Higuchi, Shoji Kawamori, Toshio Suzuki, and Kenji Kamiyama. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Following up on his cult anime masterpieces Patlabor 2 and Ghost in the Shell, Mamoru Oshii makes his live-action debut with this virtual reality thriller set in a near-future cyberpunk wasteland, in which the youth of an unnamed central European nation are enthralled with violent and illegal virtual reality computer games. Ash (Malgorzata Foremniak) is a ruthless "Class A" fighter and reigning queen of the games. She's itching to move to the next level of playing. Aside from her gaming, she lives a loner's life with her pampered dog. She learns from a former team member, Stunner (Bartek Swiderski), that former game master Murphy (Jerzy Gudejko) was crippled after entering the game's most rarified level, "Special A." The level is only accessible under the right set of unusual circumstances. Once admitted, there is only one way out -- to win. Ash can't wait to prove herself and conquer the game. This film was screened at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

In the year 2029, the world has become interconnected by a vast electronic network that permeates every aspect of life. That same network also becomes a battlefield for Tokyo's Section Nine security force, which has been charged with apprehending the master hacker known only as the Puppet Master. Spearheading the investigation is Major Motoko Kusanagi, who -- like many in her department -- is a cyborg officer, far more powerful than her human appearance would suggest. And yet as the Puppet Master, who is even capable of hacking human minds, leaves a trail of victims robbed of their memories, Kusanagi ponders the very nature of her existence: is she purely an artificial construct, or is there more? What, exactly, is the "ghost" -- her essence -- in her cybernetic "shell"? When Section Six gets involved in the case, she is forced to confront the fact that there is more here than meets the eye, and that the Puppet Master may hold some of the answers she seeks. But little does she know that he has been seeking her as well. ~ Emru Townsend, Rovi

Years after the commander of an elite task force escapes a violent uprising by the corrupt brigade and his entire unit is imprisoned, one of his most dedicated pupils sets out to seek revenge in Ghost in the Shell director Mamoru Oshii's dark futuristic tale. When the Metropolitan Police's most fearsome unit -- the Kerberos -- became too powerful for the authorities to control, government officials demanded the group disarm, a command that was ultimately met with bloody resistance. Unlike the majority of his squad who were imprisoned following the uprising, Kerberos squad leader Koichi Todome escaped to start a new life. Released from prison after serving an excruciating three-year sentence, Todome's former squad member Inui vows to find his former commander at any cost. Upon achieving his goal, Inui is shocked to discover that his desperate search was not guided by his own free will, but by a higher power with an unknown motive. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi