The full length follow up to his recent short film Assault Girl 2 and first live action feature since Avalon, the first trailer has just arrived for Ghost in the Shell director Mamoru Oshii's Assault Girls. It doesn't show much and what it does show has a curiously washed out effect - having seen Assault Girl 2 I can tell you that the post production effect he lays on the visuals here looks much better in proper resolution - but new Oshii is always a major event, even relatively low-budget, quick production cycle Oshii like this. Here's the synopsis from Nippon Cinema:
In the aftermath of global thermonuclear war, the Earth’s surface has been turned into a desert battlefield. Three beautiful female hunters: Gray (Meisa Kuroki), Lucifer (Rinko Kikuchi), and Colonel (Hinako Saeki) traverse the barren landscape armed with powerful assault rifles to fight a group of deadly sand-dwelling monsters called “sunakujira” (sand whales). When the the epic battle eventually seems to be coming to an end, the sparkle of muzzle flash dies down and assault ship flies overhead. Suddenly, a gigantic super mutation called “Madara Sunakujira” attacks.
The film enters limited release in Japan December 19th and I'd imagine every spare minute between now and then will be spent poliching up all the post-production effects. Check the trailer below the break!
Yes, really odd washed out look. Must be something to do with the source and/or upload. Now having said that on to the important stuff... I like everything I see here minus the pixel like fragmenting explosion of the sand-whale when it gets hit. It feels really off and silly. Unless this is all in some kind of video game world... oh wait that was Avalon.
Well, if I recall correctly (and I could be wrong,) but AVALON had the same "washed out" look that this does (low res notwithstanding.) This one hints to be: "Avalon Meets Brazil by Way of Oroichi."
WOW!!!
Rinko looks amazing
the whole thing looks amazing!
agreed on the pixel/fragmenting sand-whale death feeling not right though
Bit more washed out than the sepia tones of Avalon, but looks good. Rinko~
I imagine it won't boil down to a KFC joke like the original short.
This interest of Oshii in nice girls shooting big guns is expertlt crafted here to make me happy.
looks somehow like a knock-off of Dune to me, don't you think? with these sandworms and all these barren land and so on... hopefully this movie goes beyond that
dunno nothing about this but
the effect they used sort of like 300 and Sin City. Makes the movie look like CG. Sort of like a CG movie but they placed human with the CG. I like this style.
Thank you film experts for your opinions on the washed out look and hatred towards the digitizing of the monsters upon their death. its good to know all you industry figureheads are pointing out the errors in Mamoru Oshii's work, I'm very sure he'll take it all on-board and immediately redo all of this to coincide with your expert opinions. After all, he is still a novice when it comes to film-making and requires all the help he can get from the random 'know it alls' from the internet. After all he's only made a few modern classics in both the anime and live-action medium - he needs all the help he can get! so keep those useless opinions comin'!
That aside - if Oshii is making a balls to the wall mindless action piece with beautiful girls...its gonna fucking rock!
I like that you call it a live action feature and 98% of what I could see was CGI. Ha!
Someone needs to take a valium.
"Thank you film experts for your opinions on the washed out look and hatred towards the digitizing of the monsters upon their death. its good to know all you industry figureheads are pointing out the errors in Mamoru Oshii’s work, I’m very sure he’ll take it all on-board and immediately redo all of this to coincide with your expert opinions. After all, he is still a novice when it comes to film-making and requires all the help he can get from the random ‘know it alls’ from the internet. After all he’s only made a few modern classics in both the anime and live-action medium - he needs all the help he can get! so keep those useless opinions comin’!"
I'm not sure how Oshii reacts to fanboys in rage, but if he's like me, he finds them quite amusing.
Also, has Oshii directed anything good on live action so far? Avalon does not count, that was a promotional add for a new brand of sleeping pills that never came out. I'm getting a strong vibe of Avalon with this teaser, lousy cgi included. Looks like a promo for a playstation 2 game.
As a lifelong Oshii fan I'm a little bit disappointed by this. I hope he'll spend a lot of time figuring out how to make the film look like something that passed the Evil Dead era. Those special effects (the worms) really are horrible.
Avalon on the other hand is the best film ever made _O_. Red Spectacles and Talking Head are awesome too.
Avalon was a film that people either hated or adored -- I thought it was magnificent. This new one (Assault Girls), while clearly less cerebral, looks like tremendous fun. Every new Oshii movie is cause for celebration.