I originally heard about this movie when I listened to the Director's Commentary, on the original Appleseed DVD released a few years back by Manga Entertainment. Just the idea of a 3D Computer Animated version of Appleseed intrigued me and it sounded like it could be a cool purchase. Although it surprised me that Manga Entertainment didn't secure the rights to this at the time, as they are usually very quick to do so.

I only knew that Optimum Asia had released this version when I saw the trailer for this movie on the Azumi 2 DVD I had rented recently. I liked the trailer so much that I immediately decided to track the Appleseed movie down to purchase it online. I purchased a brand new, shrink-wrapped copy of this DVD off Amazon UK about a week ago for about £4.50 (including postage!), so obviously there are some bargains to be had online! Good luck if you find another copy under £7 though cos I have looked, even on Ebay! Anyway, back to the DVD.

Those who know Appleseed from the orginal cel animated film will recognise a few of the characters in this film almost instantly, but rather than do a remake of the previous Appleseed film, the film-makers basically decided to start again from scratch. This may sound like a risky idea, like disappointing the original comic's fans, but the film seems all the better for it. Appleseed was one of the first Manga novels (similar to Graphic Novels in the West, only 1000's of pages long!) to be made by Masamune Shirow, the creator of the hugely successful 'Ghost In The Shell' Manga novels and movies.

THE BEGINNING OF THE FILM
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When the film starts we see parts of a war ruined, battle worn city, which reminded me a bit of the city we saw in the start of Terminator 2. Essentially a grim, dark battleground in a bleak future and the city is silent. The silence is soon broken by the sound of a tank moving through the streets searching around for something. In one of the ruined buildings we see three people in simple army gear, one guy with a rocket launcher, one guy with a sniper rifle and a woman with a semi-automatic rifle. They are all wearing night vision goggles, waiting for something to arrive. This is where the tension starts, you know something is going to kick off soon enough!

Whilst they are waiting in the shadows to fire upon the enemy, the enemy comes from behind in the shape of mutant cyborgs with red eyes. One guy's head is grabbed from behind and crushed until his head explodes! This is as graphicly violent as this film gets, so don't worry its not a gore fest Manga film. The other guy is finished off noisily too, so that only the woman Deunan Knute, the main character, is left to fight the cyborg enemies.

We then see Deunan shooting and kicking the hell out the cyborgs, using all sorts of acrobatics and fancy moves. One move which is even slightly Matrix-like in its delivery! She then outruns a gatling gun firing tank in order to get away, until she's backed into a corner by 2 tanks and the rest of the cyborgs.

She's then saved by soldiers with cannons in Armoured, mechanical suits from a nearby helicopter-plane hybrid and then captured with a tranquiliser, when she tries to fight them off! This is just one of the thrilling sequences you see throughout the film and its a brilliant way to lead into the title sequence over the colourful, gleaming city of Olympus. The flight back is when you are introduced to the character of Briareos, Deunan's former lover, who is now part cyborg and looks like he has some sort of metallic bunny ears! :-P

THE STORY
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Obviously from the opening sequence we know that this is an Apocolyptic vision of the future. The year is 2131 AD, set after a major war (I assume its a world war against cyborgs, although we are never told) and the last remaining human city is called 'Olympus' on the Canary Islands, built from the remainders of the world's governments. The population of this Utopian metropolis is half-full of Bioroids, a species of humans genetically designed to feel no emotion, so that they can create a peaceful society and thus help control the city. Unfortunately all Bioroids have a limited lifespan, due to the way the DNA is designed, with their remaining lifespan shown on a rotating hologram, hovering around their wrist.

The two main giant, curved buildings in the centre of the city house the genetic facilities for creating the Bioroids, as well as the advisory mainframe computer called "GAIA," which aids the running of the city.

Then the peace in the city is shattered by a group of human rebels, who try to sabotage the "GAIA" mainframe. They attempt this using a group of terrorists to destroy the computer in order to free the human race from what they see as Bioroid control. Basically if you destroy GAIA, you destroy the production of all the Bioroids.

So its up to highly-skilled soldier Deunan and her former lover Briareos (who was rebuilt into a part-cyborg man after almost being left for dead on the battlefield) to stop the terrorists and locate the missing 'Appleseed' DNA data that will extend Bioroid life.

The thrills come from the wonderfully staged and acrobatic fight scenes, especially from the 3 female cyborg ninjas who try to kill the Bioroid called Hitomi who accompanies Deunan. Plus there are a few laughs to be had from one liners and the interplay between the lead characters. Thankfully there is enough character development, raw emotion (there's a personal memory shock for Deunan later in the film), excitement and clever ideas in this film to prevent you from being bored. That's if the bright, colourful and vibrant animation doesn't keep you awake already!

THE DISCS
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This release has two DVD discs, the first disc has the movie itself and the second disc has the Making Of featurette, 'The Birth Of 3D Live Animé' featurette, Design Archives (a character design slideshow video with music), Production Background info and of course the Trailers. I'm not really someone who really cares about extras, as I find they don't usually add anything to the film and are basically used to fill up the DVD, although if you're a fan of Masamune Shirow's manga creations or even just a Manga/Animé fan, there's at least something for you here.

The first disc has the English Dubbed audio track and the original Japanese language tracks, with subtitles available. Although unlike most Dubbed Manga DVD releases I own, the English subtitles are not automatically selected for you if you select the Japanese language. Not a huge problem of course, just a minor annoyance that they could have sorted! There's also a Commentary track on the DVD from Director Shinji Aramaki and Producer Fumihiko Sori, with English subtitles, as they do speak in Japanese. You either love or hate Director's Commentaries, but it does give you an insight into their original ideas for this film and problems they had to overcome during production.

THE MAIN DVD
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When you first load the DVD you get the usual Warning screen

Pictures of Appleseed (Animated) (Subtitled and Dubbed) (DVD)

Main DVD Menu

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and Logos that you can't fast forward, but thankfully no other rubbish to wade through. It then arrives at the blue coloured animated menu, with mini clips from the film playing in the background. From here you can either just play the movie, select a scene or setup the sound and language options. The menus are designed to match parts of the film's design and so compliment it brilliantly.

AUDIO
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The audio is pretty impressive on this disc and sounded pretty good on my 32 inch Stereo TV, not "tinny" or echoey as the Dubbed sound usually is on these Animé DVD titles. I have no idea how good this film sounds on a surround sound system, as I don't own one yet. So your guess is as good as mine! Thankfully the dubbed audio seemed to match the lips of the characters perfectly, unlike in the Japanese version, according to the Director's commentary. :-P

On the Soundtrack are contribution tracks (which is unusual for Japanese Manga) from the likes of Paul Oakenfold, Basement Jaxx (for the opening titles), Carl Craig and Atom (who??!!)amongst others, as well as an orchestral score by Tetsuya Takahashi.

PICTURE QUALITY
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The style of animation in this is totally unique. Its 3D and yet it still has the look of Japanese style, hand-drawn cel animation, which is so familiar to fans of Manga movies. In fact some parts of this film feel as though they've been hand drawn and other parts feel like a live action movie. Its definitely a unique experience! There have been attempts to make 2D animation look 3D, but never to this level of detail or precision.

Most of the movements were coreographed carefully using complex motion capture techniqes, but at least half the movements were painstakingly done by hand. Not that you'd notice, as the characters all move fluidly throughout the film.

All I can say about this is you have to see the images for yourself to truely appreciate the colour range and vibrancy of the graphics. The city of Olympus that we end up seeing is incredibly colourful, with gleaming glass skyscrapers, brightly coloured cars and highways with mirrored surfaces! They obviously wanted this film to be as eye catching and as jaw droppingly beautiful as possible with the computer technology they used. Apart from the beginning of the film which is fairly dark and generally monochrome, except for the colour of the characters themselves. This is deliberate, so your jaw drops when you sse the city! It just looks gorgeous throughout and the level of detail they have achieved is truely amazing.

As far as I could tell there were no imperfections in the picture, such as "artefacts" and no video/audio synch problems that I could notice. This seems to have been a flawless transfer of the computer animation from the master source, so not likely to be any imperfections really! I can imagine this looking even more amazing on a High Definition DVD and definitely a good film for electrical shops to test the quality of their HD televisions one day I think.

TO SUM UP
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Well what else can I say? I hope they make a sequel! The picture is perfect, the sound is great, the story is smart, the characters feel like real characters in a movie and the film satisfies on every level, unless of course you don't like this type of film. Although would you have read this far if you weren't a fan or at least curious about watching it?? I thought not.

If you don't buy it, at least rent it. :)