Director Mamoru Oshii's award-winning cyber tech thriller, based on the comic book by Masamune Shirow, has established itself as one of the leading Japanese animation films of all time.
2029: A female cybernetic government agent, Major Motoko Kusanagi, and the Internal Bureau of Investigations are hot on the trail of "The Puppet Master," a mysterious and threatening computer virus capable of infiltrating human hosts.
Together with her fellow agents from Section 9, Kusanagi embarks on a high-tech race against time to capture the omnipresent entity.
The cat-and-mouse game that follows forms the basis for director Mamoru Oshii’s landmark cyberpunk anime. Seamlessly merging traditional cel animation with the then-latest CGI, the film broke through the boundaries of mainstream animation with its detailed artistic expression and unique story. Issues of identity, reality, an electronically connected world are explored in a concise 82-minute runtime. The film influenced a number of works, most notably the Wachowski’s The Matrix, which took several concepts from the anime, including the digital rain.
"Oshii is able to knit together action sequences with extraordinary power and conviction...Ghost in the Shell is absolutely terrific." —Stephen Hunter, Baltimore Sun
This film screens as part of our Ani-May series, featuring Ghost in the Shell, Mind Game, Paprika, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away, May 24 to 30.