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Ghost in the Shell 4K remaster opens in Hong Kong

Ghost In The Shell 4K Blu Ray Cover (https://www.blu-ray.com/)

By J.B.Browne

Hong Kong film distributor Edko Films announced last month that it would screen the new 4K remaster of Ghost in the Shell in Hong Kong at select theaters from March 11.

No, not the Scarlet Johansson one. The original one. The one all others are measured against. The one that was one of the first animes to use digital techniques. The one where all background scenes and character animations for each cell were hand-drawn then scanned into a computer. The one that was a film about technology but has a distinct analog heft. The one that spawned countless imitators, franchise films, media, and TV series that continue today.

Every much a bonafide classic and – wait for it – 'sci-conic' as Akira, 1995's Ghost in the Shell, has been blessed with a new 4K restoration twenty-six years after its original release. Directed by Mamoru Oshii, written by Kazunori Ito, and based on Masamune Shirow's eponymous manga, the film is often cited as a cyberpunk masterpiece—and for good reason. Its topics, ideas, and DNA continue to burn a heavy shadow across the cultural landscape, influencing everything from The Matrix to Avatar and most things interstellar sci-fi and beyond.

Watch the trailer for the highly-anticipated 4K restoration of the anime classic here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN7ZuVa-nxQ

Perhaps its relevance today is due to its sense of foreboding pre-millennial dread — a common theme with great works of the mid-late nineties — where feelings of anxiety and paranoia dominate the text as man becomes more and more enmeshed in technology's abyss.

Taking place in an imagined 2029, the premise in the intro states:

"In the not so distant future, when corporate networks fill the Earth with electronic and optical communication lines but society has not been computerized to erase nation and races..."

Ghost in the Shell's enduring appeal, like Akira, is the way it seems to be so far ahead of its time, reminding us of an all too familiar glimpse into a future of possible unfolding in real-time.

In this version of 2029, technological advances in cybernetics have allowed body parts and organs to be replaced with robotic ones. For example, the central character Major Motoko Kusanagi, a female agent working for the government, is a cyborg without any reproductive organs and so, therefore, cannot menstruate.

Sharalyn Orbaugh's essay "The Genealogy of the Cyborg in Japanese Popular Culture" from World Weavers: Globalization, Science Fiction, and the Cybernetic Revolution (2005) — the first-ever study on the relationship between globalization and science fiction — writes that the opening scene is "all about the nature of sex/gender identity and self-identity... in a future world where sexual reproduction has given way to mechanical replication."

At its core, the film is about Motoko's ontological concerns; her identity as a sterile cyborg-human, ending with the evolution of the Puppet Master, a being without reproduction, "you will not find a corpse because I have never possessed a body," it says.

But perhaps what caught the collective imagination in 1995, something that continues to enthrall us today, is the idea that if body parts can be replaced with cyber ones, indeed, brains and minds could be replaced too. These 'cyber-brains' would have the ability to gain constant access to the Internet, frameworks, networks, endless information, and expertise. You know, like how Neo downloads skills into his brain for Matrix shenanigans.

Are we even that far away from this scenario in reality? Like those vines of wires bursting from a female body depicted in the movie's iconic poster, our minds are already tethered to devices and VR in a way previously unimaginable. If VR is our next greatest addiction, is our desperate reliance on smartphones and connectivity already partway there?

Ghost in the Shell's emphasis on the notion that to be human is a machine's primary weakness poses this central philosophical question:

"What does it mean to be 'human' in a society where minds can be duplicated and body parts replaced with their synthetic equivalents?"

"Proving it is impossible," the Puppet Master answers when questioned on the nature of being alive.

"Because modern science cannot explain what life is."

Experience these ideas and the groundbreaking vision of Hong Kong's futurescape on the big screen now.

As he would refer himself, J.B. Browne is a half "foreign devil" living with anxiety relieved by purchase. HK-born Writer/Musician/Tinkerer.

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