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A stunning piece of Japanese animation, Metropolis (2001) gets much of its visual look as well as its storyline less from the Fritz Lang classic than from Osamu Tezuka's comic book adaptation of it. In a style a reminiscent of Little Nemo and TinTin, Lang's dystopian fantasy is tweaked into the story of the doomed robot girl Tima and her love for Kenichi, nephew of a visiting Japanese detective. The city's ruler, Duke Red, needs her to complete his super-weapon, the Ziggurat, and has built her to resemble his dead daughter; the Duke's adopted son Rock is jealous and possessive of his father; and Tima's builder Laughton has agendas of his own. There are chases, riots, conflagrations and duels in the snow; unusually for Japanese animation the backgrounds are as inventively characterised as the characters who move through them. Screenwriter Katsuhiro Otomo and director Rintaro have deservedly moved from cult status to the mainstream on the strength of this film, which merits the epic tag so often attached to less interesting animations. --Roz Kaveney

Release Date: Jul 22, 2002
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