Metropolis is a great city of the future where persons and robots co-exist. The civilization has reached another stage and societies are absolutely segmented. It is in this setting that detective Shunsaku Ban and his partner Kenichi are looking for Dr Laughton. They want to arrest the scientist and, also, to seize Tima, a young robot developed by him. The two detectives, however, did not expect that Dr Laughton would be protected by a powerful man who is trying to settle accounts with the past. Metropolis is based on Japanese comics by Osamu Tezuka, one of the most important comic-strip draughtsmen in Japan. The script is by Katsuhiro Otomo, internationally known for his cartoon Akira. —São Paulo International Film Festival
Rintaro, one of the most famous Japanese anime directors, began his career as a seventeen-year-old animator for the Toei Animation Studio. In the early 1960s he began working for Mushi Productions and under the pseudonym Rintaro (his real name is Shigeyuki Hayashi) animated many TV series. Starting in 1971, he began working as a freelancer and became known as one of the best directors of TV anime. In the1980s and 90s he directed more for the big screen. His most important films include Ginga tetsudô Three-Nine (Galaxy Express 999, 1979), Sayônara, ginga tetsudô Surî-Nain: Andromeda shûchakueki (Adieu, Galaxy Express 999, 1981), Kamui no ken (The Blade of Kamui, 1985), Teito monogatari (Doomed Megalopolis, 1991), X (1996), Metoroporisu (Metropolis, 2001) and Yonayona pengin (Yona Yona Penguin, 2009). —Film programmes
Even if it's only close to being as masterful as the other Metropolis film, this anime film is still overlooked, and yet stands to me as one of the most stunning, disturbing, stylish and heartfelt non-Ghibli films I have seen. It also proves that a movie really can be made out of a manga inspired by a silent film, as long as it can be taken seriously. What's so dramatic about a Mikimaus waltdisneus?
Rintaro and Katsuhiro Otomo’s 2001 anime Metropolis peers through a many-faceted cultural prism back at Fritz Lang’s seminal science fiction film of the same name. An adaptation of “God of Manga”… read review