Patlabor Film 1-Kidô keisatsu patoreba (1989)

Directed by: Mamoru Oshii | 116 minutes | animation, action, drama, crime, science fiction, thriller | Original voice cast: Toshio Furukawa, Mîna Tominaga, Ryûnosuke Ôbayashi, Yoshiko Sakakibara, Yô Inoue, Michihiro Ikemizu, Issei Futamata, Shigeru Chiba

Fans of the better anime, the name Mamoru Oshii probably means something. This man is responsible for genre classic ‘Ghost in the Shell’. That one movie catapulted Oshii straight into the annals as a living anime legend. Rightly so. ‘Ghost in the Shell’ from 1995 inspired countless directors and got entire tribes excited about Japanese animation art. That production was both a blessing and a curse for Oshii, because he gained fame and respect with it, but from then on it was continuously linked to that film. Everything he did and does is compared to that one movie. Unfortunately, Oshii hasn’t outdone himself yet, although he has made a lot of interesting films. He subsequently made live action film ‘Avalon’ and a sequel to ‘Ghost in the Shell’. Less well known is that the director has been working in the anime field since 1977.

‘Patlabor – Film 1’ dates from 1989. The hand of the master is also visible in this film. Like ‘Ghost in the Shell’, this film revolves around the relationship between man and machine. Inventions like robots make life easier, but don’t we lose our humanity as a result? We hand over our responsibility and no longer rely on our own abilities. And what if machines get human feelings and go their own way. Is the master then overpowered?

‘Patlabor – Film 1’ is set in 1999(!). Tokyo is an advanced city where robots are used to make life easy for people. These so-called ‘Labors’ do jobs that humanity does not like to do. But then suddenly robots are running rampant. The police deploy their own Labors. Robots to stop robots: that can’t go well, can it? The cause of the derailed robots is due to the operating system designed by the influential company Shinohara. Is it a manufacturing error or intentional? Agents Noah and Azuma have to investigate to find out exactly what’s going on.

The great strength of ‘Patlabor – Film 1’ is the story, the interaction between the two agents and the search for humanity in a world of steel. The emphasis is not on action, but on character development. It’s not that there aren’t spectacular scenes in this movie, but at least less than you’d expect based on the synopsis. The action is nicely portrayed, but the outdated animation means that the spectacle is less impressive now than it was at the time of its release (1989). In short, you can say that ‘Patlabor – Film 1’ is not for everyone. The narrative pace is fairly slow, the animation is outdated and the use of color (pastel!) is also outdated.

It remains unclear why this film was re-released. A-Film also released this production in 2001. Surely there are more interesting films available that have not yet been released on DVD or Blu-ray, but are certainly worth releasing on the Dutch market?