Metoroporisu (2001)

User Rating:

7.3/10   

Director:

Rintaro

Writers:

Osamu Tezuka (comic book)
Katsuhiro Ôtomo (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

25 January 2002 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Animation | Sci-Fi | Action | Crime | Drama | Romance | Thriller

Tagline:

Welcome to Metropolis

Plot:

Kenichi and his uncle Shunsaku Ban must find the mystery behind robot girl Tima.

Plot Keywords:

Teenage Boy | Manga | Cult Cartoon | Based On Comic | Detective

Awards:

1 win & 3 nominations

US Showtimes:

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Cast

Yuka Imoto	...	Tima (voice)
Kei Kobayashi	...	Kenichi (voice)
Kouki Okada	...	Rock (voice)
Tarô Ishida	...	Duke Red (voice)
Jamieson Price	...	Duke Red (voice: English version)
Kousei Tomita	...	Ban Syunsaku : Hige-Oyaji (voice: Japanese version)
Junpei Takiguchi	...	Dr. Laughton (voice)
Toshio Furukawa	...	General
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Robert Axelrod	...	Ham And Egg (voice: English version)
Steve Blum	...	Acetylene Lamp (voice: English version) (as David Lucas)
Yutaka Hayashi	...	Additional Voices (voice: Japanese version)
William Knight	...	Supt. Notarlin (voice: English version)
Dave Mallow	...	Pero (voice: English version)
Gô Nagai	...	Guest voice (voice)
Richard Plantagenet	...	President Boone (voice: English version) (as Steve McGowan)
Tony Pope	...	Shinsaku Ban (voice: English version)
Simon Prescott	...	Dr. Laughton (voice: English version)
Michael Reisz	...	Rock (voice: English version)
Peter Spellos	...	Mayor Lyon (voice: English version)
Melodee Spevack	...	Additional English characters (voice: English version)
Doug Stone	...	Dr. Ponkotsu (voice: English version)
Kai Taschner
Scott Weinger	...	Atlas (voice)
Dan Woren	...	Skunk (voice: English version)

Also Known As:

Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis (Australia) (USA) (DVD title)
Metropolis (USA)
Osamu Tezuka no Metoroporisu (Japan) (complete title)
Robotic Angel (International: English title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for violence and images of destruction. (also English dubbed version)

Runtime:

108 min | Japan:113 min | Argentina:109 min | Netherlands:104 min | Spain:109 min | USA:107 min | France:107 min (movie version)

Country:

Japan

Language:

English | French | German | Italian | Spanish | Japanese | Russian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS | Dolby SR

Certification:

Iceland:12 | USA:TV-14 (TV rating) | Malaysia:U | Argentina:Atp | Australia:PG | Brazil:14 | Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:PG | Chile:14 | Finland:K-11 | France:U | Germany:12 | Hong Kong:IIA | Ireland:12 | Italy:T | Japan:R | Mexico:B | Netherlands:12 | New Zealand:PG | Norway:11 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:PG | South Korea:All | Spain:7 | Sweden:11 | Taiwan:PG-12 | UK:PG | USA:PG-13

Company:

Bandai Visual Company

Trivia:

A total of 150,000 animation cells were used.

Goofs:

Continuity: Rock's costume disappears in the Throne of Power scene.

Quotes:

Tima: I am who?

Movie Connections:

References Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)

Soundtrack:

I Can't Stop Loving You

One of my all time favourites

I'm not a big fan of Manga I must admit. The movies I've seen have been few and far between and while I certainly enjoyed the likes of Ninja Scroll, Akira and Ghost In The Shell, I've never had much urge to seek out a really wide knowledge of the genre. That being said though, Metropolis has to rank as one of my top five films of all time, not just the animated ones.

Telling the story of a far future world where humans and robots exist alongside one another, it focuses on the adventures of a Private Investigator and his son visiting the city for the first time and hunting down a missing robot called Tima. And what a city it is! The animation, simply put, is stunning. The epic scope of this vast urban world is beautifully captured on screen. It is richly detailed and lit up like a fantastic world of colour, like a fine piece of dramatic art that has come to life. The animation on the characters meanwhile is no less amazing, it is more akin to French than Japanese in stylistic terms, but is still very detailed and beautifully realised.

But this is no piece of aesthetic beauty with nothing to back it up as the storyline is truly gripping. As the boy befriends a young girl, both of them unaware that she is in fact an experimental robot, you find yourself getting swept up in their plight and they have just as much, if not more depth and emotion than any real-life actor's work.

Come the climax, you'll be simultaneously thrilled and left emotionally stunned. This is a magnificent film, I can't praise it enough.