Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence
Welcome to my DVD review of Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence, this review is from the PAL Europe 2 Disk DVD.
Genral Film Info
Manga UK
Production IG
Bandai Ent.
Website
Website 2
Director:
Mamoru Oshii
Cast:
Akio Otsuka - Bato
Atsuko Tanaka - Major Motoko Kusanagi
Koichi Yamadera - Togusa
Tamio Oki - Section 9 Department Chief Aramaki
Yutaka Nakano - Ishikawa
Naoto Takenaka - Kim
Genral DVD Info
Run Time:
96 Minutes approx
Aspect Ratio:
1.85:1
Sound - Disk 1:Japanese or English (dubbed) Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround audio track *English Subs
Japanese or English (dubbed) Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo audio track *English Subs
Sound - Disk 2:
Japanese or English (dubbed) DTS 5.1 Surround *English Subs
Synopsis:
It is the year 2032 and Earth is a world where the few remaining humans coexist with cyborgs, human spirits inhabiting mechanized bodies, and dolls, robots with no human elements whatsoever. A cyborg detective for the government's covert anti-terrorist unit Public Security Section 9, Batou is charged with investigating the bizarre case of a malfunctioning gynoid - a hyper-realistic female robot created specifically for sexual companionship - responsible for slaughtering its owner.
Delving deeper and deeper into the investigation, Batou and his partner, Togusa, are forced to confront violent Yakuza thugs, devious hackers, influential government bureaucrats and powerful corporate criminals. As they move closer to uncovering the mystery, it slowly becomes apparent that the truth behind the crime is far more shocking than anyone dared imagine...
Disk 1 - Special features
Audio commentary: from director Mamoru Oshii and animation director Toshihiko Nishikubo
As far as audio commentary's go this was ok I guess, but I never finished listerning to it as I was trying to watch the film and people talking in Japanese with sub's and trying to watch the film was a bit hard. But over all if your into commentary's then this is an ok one (only if you can keep up
)
The Making Of: Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence
The making of documentary was ok nothing special, just your regulare clips from the film with various people talking about the techniques used. I found the subtitles to be a pain in the ar*e when viewing this documentary, as they shift from the top of the screen to the bottom, and when they are at the top the clash with the picture and sometimes can be hard to read, this wouldn't be a problem if they had a dubbed soundtrack for it but they dont.
Disk 2 - Special features
Trailers
Just standard trailers, nothing to go crazy about
Sneak peek: at episode 5 of 'Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG
Again this is nothing special, its just a 10 minute intro to the TV spinoff and 5 of those minutes are the opening sequence.
'Face To Face': interview with director Mamoru Oshii
This is a little better but from a fan's point of view only, as for adding anything to the film... Not a sausage, just a bunch of boring questions cooked up by Manga UK and he just replys, I even turned it off after question #4. talk about dull.
Manga Trailers
Various trailers for up and coming films from Manga UK.
Round up & overall thoughts
Well for the special features side of the DVD package, it sucks. The amount packed onto these disks is very minimal (but there is a reason) and the quality of these features is low and even downright dull, Ive always found this to be the case with foreign films especially the ones from Asia, maybe they dont see the point of them and dont bother making or adding them to the DVD's.
Special Features: 👍👍 / 👍👍👍👍👍
Now for the main feature. The film is one of the best Anime of all time and is not just a Tour De Force in the image department, but has a compeling and awsome storyline, maybe its been done with Bladerunner and more recent The Matrix, but A.I.'s, Robots & Cyborgs still manage to capture my imagination and fule my need to watch films that follow in line.
GITS 2: Innocence is a remarkable piece of film making, not only are the voice actors supurb (Japanese & American) but the animation on show here is the best ive seen since Akira and Patlabor, and the mix of 3D and 2D are stunning, alot better than Appleseed.
Now for the reason behind the scant features. On the second disk the film is repeated but with DTS only. Now for anyone who has surround knows that DTS is the best of the best and having it all alone seperate on the other disk makes for better quality viewing wich is well thought out, if they were going to try and squeeze it onto the first disk along with the DD 2.0 & 5.1 its would have been virtually impossible without compramising the picture and sound quality all round, so to have it on its own disk is a great idea.
Main Feature 👍👍👍👍👍 / 👍👍👍👍👍
Your "Heat" DVD review is the best one by far I think. Only extra feature on my DVD is the trailer, so I couldn't belive how many documentaries were on your 2-disc set. I'll probably upgrade to the same one you have in the near future, but if not, I might rent it just for the documentaries. 
I'd love to do a trilogy marathon one of these days. Sounds fun!
)
, its definatly interesting.
but they used seats in the boot (trunk) of the cars with pedals and steering wheels in and ex F1 & Champ car drivers did the driving with the stars just mimiking the moves, makes it look very good from a movie point of view. 👍
), which I prefer. If the 2-Disc Ronin is sold in the States, I am definitely picking it up(I'm sure it is). All those extra features makes me want to ........ 
I heard it was really bad, and I didn't even bother renting it. I suppose I'm going to have to buy one of those Hong Kong import copies of the original ones off of eBay. 
