Ghose in the Shell 2017

     The setting of this film is a future Hong Kong.  Major Motoko Kusanagi is the first of her kind.  Her body is entirely man made and her brain is from her original human body.  She was told she was saved from a terrible terrorist attack and she almost drowned.  Her parents did drown in the attack.  Now she is the perfect soldier devoted to stopping the world’s most dangerous criminals.  Terrorism is evolving with hacking into the minds of the people to control them.  Major Kusanagi is physically and mentally qualified to face this new enemy.  Then, she learns she has been lied to, her life was not saved but stolen, her parents didn't drown.   Now her mission is to recover her past, find out who did this and stop them before they move on to doing this to others.

     There is a lot of color in this film but also a lot of darkness and black.  I usually find the blackness is to hide the imperfections.  The city is very unusual with a lot of color and also unusual animated characters.  There was a lot of push back because of casting Johannson and not a Japanese actress in the lead role.  I would’ve liked more to the plot and more character interaction along with less murkiness.  3* (This movie is OK)

107 min, Action directed by Ruper Sanders with Scarlett Johansson, Pilou Asbaek, Takeshi Kitano, Juliette Binoche, Michael Pitt, Chin Han , Danusia Samal, Lasarus Ratuere, Yutaka Izumihara, Twanda Manyimo, Peter Ferdinando, Anamaria Marinca.

Note:  Imdb 6.4 out of 10, 45% critic 52% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert 2*, Amazon video 3.5* out of 5* with 810 reviews DVD 4.2* with 527 reviews, The Guardian 4* out of 5* review by Wendy Ide 3* out of 5* review by Peter Bradshaw, Metacritic 52 out of 100 with 42 critics 6.9 out of 10 with 851 reviews.

Special Note:  Filmed in Wellington and Lower Hutt, New Zealand; Hong Kong and Shanghai, China.

Special Note:  There is a shot of a Pan Am advertisement and this is a reference to Blade Runner of 1982 that included an advertisement for Pan Am.  There is another film with the same title from 1995.  Some scenes are exact re-creations of the original artwork from 1995.  Imbd gives the 1995 film 8 out of 10, 1.6 points higher than this 2017 version.  The city of Hong Kong is actually a highly digitized city.  Margot Robbie was also considered for the role played by Johansson.  Her character wears a Thermosuit made out of silicone.  The gross for this film worldwide was $169 million with a budget of $110 million and it was considered a box office bomb.