Appleseed Ex Machina

Appleseed Ex Machina

Appleseed Ex Machina IMDb

Appleseed EX Machina is an anime film and is the sequel to the 2004 Appleseed film, similarly directed by Shinji Aramaki. It was released on 20th October 2007 in Japan and fully involved Hong Kong director and producer John Woo. The film made its American premiere at The Jules Verne Adventures Film Festival in Los Angeles on December 15th, 2007.

Plot summary

Following the non-nuclear war that killed half the world's population, the city-nation of Olympus stands as a beacon of hope in a world of chaos and conflict. The utopian metropolis is governed by Gaia, a vast artificial intelligence, and administered by genetically engineered humanoids known as bioroids, whose designer DNA suppresses strong emotions. With Bioroids being half of its population, peace and order are easily maintained.

Deunan Knute, a young female warrior, and Briareos, a veteran cyborg-soldier, are both partners and lovers. As members of E.S.W.A.T., the elite special forces serving Olympus, they are deployed whenever trouble strikes. The two fighters find their partnership tested in a new way by the arrival of a new member to their ranks — an experimental bioroid named Tereus.

Created by Gaia using DNA from Briareos, Tereus uncannily resembles Briareos before the wartime injuries that led to his becoming a cyborg. Not only does this trouble Deunan, but Briareos's DNA gives Tereus more than top-notch fighting skills; this battle-ready bioroid is like Briareos in another way — he also has strong romantic feelings for Deunan.

Akira

Akira IMDb (7,8 out of 10)

Akira Official (Japanese)

Akira is a 1988 Japanese animated film co-written and directed by Katsuhiro Otomo based on his manga of the same name. The movie led the way for the growing popularity of anime in the West, with Akira considered a forerunner of the second wave of anime fandom that began in the early 1990s. One of the reasons for the movie's success was the highly advanced quality of its animation. At the time, most anime was notorious for cutting production corners with limited motion, such as having only the characters' mouths move while their faces remained static. Akira broke from this trend with meticulously detailed scenes, exactingly lip-synched dialogue — a first for an anime production (voices were recorded before the animation was completed, rather than the opposite) — and super-fluid motion as realized in the film's more than 160,000 animation cels. It is regarded by critics as one of the greatest animated films ever made.