Welcome to Metropolis, a classic future city - gigantic hi-tech skyscrapers where the rich elite dwell, and lo-tech dirty slum under the streets where the less fortunate people live. The work of cleaners, traffic police, waiters, bellboys etc, is carried out by robots. Sometimes robots go berserk and start attacking humans, and for that reason there are special armed squads that come and eliminate the robot.

To this metropolis comes the boy Kenichi together with his uncle, Detective Higeoyaji, from Japan to find the international criminal Dr. Lawton (alternatively spelled Dr. Laughton), who is wanted for experiments with human bodies and trade with human organs. To their help they receive a detective robot called 803-D, R-P, D.M.497-3-C (no I'm not joking) from the metropolis police. The reason for this complicated name instead of a human name is to prevent people from getting too attached to the robots, but think of them as nothing else than machines. Higeoyaji, however, decides to call it Pero after his old dog. Dr. Lawton works on a revolutionary robot that is ordered by one of the most powerful men in the city - Duke Red. He has named the robot Tima after his late daughter. He has far greater plans for Tima than just being a replica of his daughter though. This robot is not appreciated by Rock, a young man who has been taken care of like by Duke Red since he was an infant. Rock consider himself as Duke Red's son and does not want any competition for his affection, and so he does all he can to get rid of Tima. But before he manages to get rid of her, she is found by Kenichi and they become close as they run from Rock and his troops. However, neither Kenichi nor Tima knows she is in fact a robot.

The strong points of this film are above all the fantastic sceneries, animations, and the character design. Since the film is based on a manga from 1949 by Osamu Tezuka (1928-1989) (the most respected creator of manga in Japan - sometimes referred to as the God of Manga) the characters have an appearance quite different from modern animation. Those who are not familiar with Tezuka and his manga will most likely think that they resemble early Disney animations, which is not a coincidence since Tezuka, especially in the beginning of his career, was deeply influenced by Disney and even worked at the Disney Studios for a while. This resemblance to early Disney animations actually deepens the atmosphere of the film. It fits perfectly since the metropolis is an American future city in forties or fifties retro style. While the characters are cell-animated (drawn by hand) as usual, a lot of the backgrounds are computer-animated. This results in astoundingly beautiful and powerful scenes. There is a difference in both colour depth and fps (frames per second - low fps means choppy animation) between the cell-animated and the computer-animated, but since the computer-animation is only used in the background there is no problem with the colour depth, and since it is a high-budget production the fps of the cell-animations are high and so the difference is not that big. (For example, I thought it was disturbing when a computer-animated robot/vessel fought with cell-animated characters with low/normal fps in the animated series Blue Submarine No.6.)

Talking of character design, Tezuka frequently reused many characters in his works, often in somewhat different carnations, and many of the classical ones are featured in this film. Among them are Higeoyaji, Duke Red, and Rock. The name of Higeoyaji actually means something like Mr Moustache.

Another strong point is the soundtrack. As you probably know, the soundtrack makes at least half the atmosphere, and in Metropolis American music from the era the retro style refers to (and possibly older) plays throughout the film, even with a Ray Charles tune. Well, most tunes aren't actually from that era, but are new tunes with the same musical style. The quite unique soundtrack (for an animation) adds much to the overall uniqueness of this film.

When it comes to the story, you can really tell that Katsuhiro Otomo wrote the script. If you have seen any Japanese animation before you probably know about Akira, and you probably have seen it too. Katsuhiro Otomo is the man who wrote and directed that film. You an draw a lot of parallels between Akira and Metropolis. It is like Otomo took the Metropolis manga and put it into an Akira mould. Especially the ending. What is left of the original is a modified version of the main plot, some of the main characters (although Tima was originally a boy shaped robot by the name of Micchi) and the clean bright future city as people imagined it in the forties (although the design is more extreme and there are sub-levels of the city that are far more Otomo than Tezuka). The story is somewhat predictable and does not contain many twists and turns and philosophical questions as is usual in modern films with the similar human-android theme (i.e. Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, and now also A.I. - released after I originally wrote this review) it still contains similar thoughts (take the naming of the robot Pero for example). However, it is after all based on a manga from 1949, when the thoughts about humanoid androids and how they differ from humans where on a completely different level. I think Metropolis does a good job converting the manga into a modern movie without losing much of the original feeling.

The director of Metropolis is Rintaro (real name Shigeyuki Hayashi), who has been working under and with Tezuka in his studio, directing quite a few of his films and tv-series, i.e. Tetsuwan Atom (Astro Boy), Jungle Tantei (Kimba, The White Lion), Hi no Tori (Phoenix) etc. He has also directed the animated Moomin tv-series, which are well known in Sweden although it may not be known that they are animated in Japan. And he has directed many of Leiji Matsumoto's films, i.e. Uchu Kaizoku Captain Harlock (Space Pirate Captain Harlock) and Ginga Tetsudo 999 (Galaxy Express 999).  Among the more recent animated films/series he has directed are Gunm (Battle Angel Alita), Final Fantasy (in 1994, not the new one) and X (after the manga by the all female studio CLAMP).

Any special relation to the German film Metropolis (1927) by Fritz Lang is not apparent. The only similarities are the future themes and the creation of Micchi in the original manga and the creation of an android in the 1927 German film, as far as I have heard. However, unfortunately I have not seen that film in its completeness, so there may be more similarities although I doubt it.

The negative thing with the film is the same as can be said about almost all movies that take on epic themes - it feels a bit short. A little bit more development of the subplots, like the relationship of Kenichi and Tima would have made me feel more compassionate about their characters. But that is difficult to do while maintaining a length that is suitable for the big screen. Unlike for example Akira, though, there is no problem to understand what is happening the first time you watch the film.

TEZUKA OSAMU @ WORLD
(English or Japanese)