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| www.d-engine.com,
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| Media,
Richard Young,
20 January 1999 |
Rating: F2
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For those who have been waiting with baited breath for the release of Miyazake’s epic, Princess Mononoke, well, your breath must be pretty damn baited by now, as distributors continue to refuse to provide a U.K release date. For followers of all things Anime, a whole new tasty carrot is currently being dangled on site [ou] – a Mamoru Oshii netsite, which is found by visiting www.d-engine.com (d-engine being Digital Engine, a project under development by Bandai involving the latest digital film-making procedures).
Called G.R.M, or The Record of GARM War, there is plenty of speculation that this will be the first film to use CGI, animation, miniature work and live action in a way that has never been seen before. Mamoru Oshii, the creator of The Patlabor films and the hugely popular Anime, Ghost in the Shell, is determined to take advantage of the unique style and design of Japanese fantasy and sci-fi, integrating it with contemporary digital film making techniques.
The site itself is very slick and utilises some understated but very cool Shockwave animation to help you navigate through the various pages including reports of the early stages of pre-production, and statements of intent by Oshii and his collaborators (including Nobuaki Koga – the animation supervisor on the popular Neon Genesis Evangelion series). There is also a report from a test shooting for the film, but this does little in the way of revealing anything about the movie other than a basic premise and a couple of vague stills.
What is exciting is that Oshii and his cohorts are genuinely trying to approach these technologies in a new way, to create something never seen before. It is hard to deny that the imaginative designs that goes into most Anime and Manga are some of the most jaw-dropping ever seen. Who can forget the giant motorbikes in Akira, the crab-tank vs Kusanagi battle in Ghost in the Shell, or the fantastic floating city of Laputa? How about trying to portray these concepts in a live action scenario? We have already seen Hollywood’s impressive efforts in Star Wars Episode 1, but how more outlandish can these visuals get? Hopefully these questions will be answered when G.R.M. will be released later this year.
I for one hope that U.K. distributors will get their arses into gear and start to recognise that the future of inventive, intelligent and visually creative sci-fi and fantasy movies may not lay purely in Hollywood’s ball court.
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