Robots are killing their human owners and Agent Batou of the counter-terrorism unit Section 9 鈥� himself almost completely cyborg 鈥� is assigned to investigate.
This is the premise for Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, an animated film directed by Mamoru Oshii and based on the classic Manga comic book series of the same name by Masamune Shirow.
View a trailer for the film (requires QuickTime), or (requires Flash).
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As in the original film, the sequel explores the consequences of people becoming ever more reliant on technology, and central to the theme is what happens when the human soul, or 鈥済host鈥�, is all that remains inside a technologically enhanced 鈥渟hell鈥�.
This is a dystopian vision of the future 鈥� one in which cybernetic enhancement, memory prosthetics and super-human androids are part of everyday life. It provides a disturbing reflection on the nature of scientific and technological progress and, if not actually anti-science, asks some serious questions about the folly of human nature.
Sex bots
The film is set in 2032, three years on from the first film, in an unspecified metropolis in the Far East. There Batou discovers that a number of 鈥済ynoids鈥�, or 鈥渇emale鈥� androids have murdered their owners.
These are no ordinary bots, however. As we soon discover, they have certain organs unnecessary for normal robotic function. 鈥淭hey are sex robots,鈥� remarks Togusa, Batou鈥檚 human partner 鈥� a throwback to more traditional times.
So far, so sci-fi. But, as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that Oshii is asking some pretty heavy questions. Philosophy and literature are recurring themes, in fact, with characters using their artificial memories to quote authors like Milton, Confucius, Darwin and Descartes at will.
Extended phenotype
Oshii also explores what Richard Dawkins calls the extended phenotype, structures that are genetically encoded, but external to the body. The beaver鈥檚 dam and the spider鈥檚 web are natural illustrations of this, and, in the film, memory itself has become externalised in this manner.
Eventually, Oshii draws many of the same conclusions as the futurist Ray Kurzweil (New 杏吧原创, 24 September 2005), who believes humanity is moving exponentially towards a machine-improved future.
But even if you dismiss this vision of human destiny, the film provides food for thought. Many technologies that have already extended human capabilities, and while we might not call devices such as cellphones, computers and the internet 鈥渃ompanions鈥� yet, most of us feel unsettled if we lose access to them.
Such philosophical, sci-fi musings might not be to everyone鈥檚 taste. But most people should be happy to sit back and enjoy possibly the most lavish and beautiful animated film ever produced. Four years in the making, the sequel is an awe-inspiring blend of photorealistic CGI (computer-generated imagery) and traditional, hand-drawn animation.
The dazzling style and technical wizardry of the original film influenced numerous directors, most notably inspiring The Matrix trilogy. If anything, Oshii鈥檚 second instalment outshines the first.
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is released in UK cinemas on 28 October. It was released in the US in 2004.