APPLESEED aka APPURUSHÎDO
Year: 2004
USA: Geneon Entertainment
UK: Optimum Releasing
Cast (voices of English version): Jennifer Proud, Jamieson Price, Kirsty Pape
Cast (voices of): Ai Kobayashi, Jurota Kosugi, Yuki Matsuoka, Yuzuru Fujimoto, Mami Koyama, Takehito Koyasu, Toshiyuki Morikawa, Ikuo Nishikawa, Emi Shinohara, Tomoko Kawakami
Cast (motion actors): Asumi Miwa, Tsubasa Akimoto
Director: Shinji Aramaki
Country: Japan
Languages: Japanese (English subtitles) and English (dubbed version)
UK: 105 mins
USA Rated: R for some violence
UK Certificate: 12A contains moderate violence
USA Release Date: 14 January 2005 (Limited Release)
UK Release Date: 19 August 2005
UK Distributor
Synopsis
The year is 2131. A non-nuclear war has left the earth barren. Deunan Knute roams the badlands, one of the many soldiers who, with lines of communication cut, continues to fight, unaware that the war has ended. Deunan is never one to take things lying down: a highly trained soldier with police and SWAT experience, she is prepared for nearly anything, but not for the heavily armed helicopter that assaults her without warning.
Before she realizes what is going on, Deunan is losing consciousness: a tranquilizer. Not only that but one of the perpetrators is her old love Briareos, He has arrived with the beautiful Hitomi to intercept Deunan and take her back with them to the enigmatic utopia, Olympus.
Safe in Olympus, Deunan comes round to Briareos' voice but he is a changed person now and 75% mechanical, a cyborg, as a result of serious injuries he sustained on the front lines of North Africa. Also the city of Olympus is the head of a new order. When the non-nuclear war ended the city assumed leadership in the ensuing political vacuum and now globally the 'unsupervised countries' depend on Olympus for their survival.
The following day as Deunan files her immigration papers accompanied by Hitomi who shows her the sights, Hitomi reveals that over half of the city's 'model citizens' are precision clones called Bioroids of which Hitomi is one herself. The bioroids were supposedly created for the benefit of humans to encourage stability in human society, but Deunan is uneasy at this revelation.
On arrival at the legislature, they are greeted by seven sage-like elders whose ongoing conversation with the supercomputer Gaia collectively forms the 'will' that controls Olympus. But effectively the bioroids are in political control and they are quietly advancing a plan that could affect the fate of the human legacy.
In Utopia, however, all is not as it seems. A group of rebel humans, who perceive bioroids as a threat to the integrity and future of mankind, try to sabotage the Olympus city computer and destroy the ability to re-activate the bioroid reproductive functions. As Deunan battles to stop the terrorists and find the 'Appleseed' data needed to extend bioroid life, the question of who she can trust and who is actually right - their society, or the terrorists - continues to arise.
Deunan's unease increases... Why has Briareos changed towards her? Can the Bioroids be trusted? Does Olympus represent an ideal or a nightmare? Deunan must face her own anguished past and overcome the disorienting present in a battle over the future of humanity itself!
APPLESEED is a cutting edge production that uses state of the art technology and 3DCG to produce one of the most visually arresting and hyper-realistic animations to date. The brainchild of leading anime creator Masamune Shirow (GHOST IN THE SHELL), APPLESEED is based on Masamune Shirow's best-selling manga of the same title, which was first printed in 1985 and has since been translated and sold to numerous countries across the globe. A post-apocalyptic science fiction epic the film is brimming with fast-paced action and awe-inspiring visuals.
After its UK theatrical release it will be released in the UK on DVD and the new UMD format for Sony PlayStation Portable on September 12, 2005. UMD (Universal Media Disc) is the new portable format designed exclusively for Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP). The newly developed UMD is the next-generation high capacity optical medium for movies and other digital content. At 60mm in diameter, the UMD can store up to 149 minutes of film, making it perfect for the PlayStation portable entertainment player. This multi-media handheld device will be launched on September 1 2005 in the UK and APPLESEED will be the first UMD to be released by Optimum.