AVALON
Year: 2001
UK: Bluelight
Cast: Malgorzata Foremniak, Wladyslaw Kowalski, Jerzy Gudejko, Dariusz Biskupski, Bartek Swiderski, Katarzyna Bargielowska, Alicja Sapryk, Michal Breitenwald, Zuzanna Kasz, Adam Szyszkowski, Krzysztof Szczerbinski, Marek Stawinski
Director: Mamoru Oshii
Countries: Poland / Japan
Language: Polish (English subtitles)
UK: 106 mins
UK Certificate: 12 contains moderate violence
UK Release Date: 8 November 2002
Synopsis
Do we exist beyond the real?
What do we know for certain about ourselves?
The story unfolds in a near future, in a country in ruins. Dangerous games spread, which bring disorder to everything... illegal virtual games of war. AVALON is one of these games, in which youths abandon themselves to the thrill of killing and dying several times. This game is their world. It's their reality.
Ash (Malgorzata Foremniak), also known as "the noble soldier" is one of these young warriors, prisoner and captive at the very core of the game.
The field "Class A" is a universe in which relentless battles are played out, where tanks explode by firing off lightning flashes of fire and where bullets fly in all directions. Ash fights here with gallantry and fearlessness. One day she finds a message: "Mission terminated". She has conquered all the fields of Avalon. The games master (Wladyslaw Kowalski) advises her to form a team, but she chooses to fight alone. She suddenly catches sight of a holographic image of a man (Dariusz Biskupski) who provokes her. His combat level is very high. Ash tries to get some information on this mysterious enemy, but the response she receives is: "No data". Why is he provoking her?
One day, she is reacquainted with Stunner (Bartek Swiderski). Once they had been on the same team, Wizard. For her it is as if the past is resurfacing and this she would rather forget. Stunner tells her that her former captain Murphy (Jerzy Gudejko) has become an invalid following a lost combat.
These three men are going to drastically disrupt Ash's life... The legendary field "Special A" is the one in which the thrill of the fighter reaches fever pitch but from which there can be no turning back. Murphy had tried to break into it and he had failed!
The "Spirit" who hides in the "Class A" field is the only door that leads to the "Special A" field. If one loses, one becomes an invalid.
Ash goes to see Murphy again, who is a completely changed man. She researches information on "Special A" but in vain. It's from this moment that strange events begin to take place around her: her dog, in whom she places her trust, disappears; as for Stunner, he reappears to provide her with some information on "Special A"; at last the man who provoked her previously returns to appear before her. He is to be the guide through the "Special A".
Ash wants this field at any cost and so decides to set up a new team. In a new field, "Ruins D99", they are violently attacked, and arrive at the brink of total annihilation, Ash present a front, left alone to face the "Spirit"...
If she beats him the door will open...
What is the hidden meaning behind "Special A"?
Is there an answer to her quest!?...
To choose a different world, is to tell our future.