STRANGE FILM

"I don’t think a plot can be described as childish" - why not? Compare plot of this film with "Blade Runner" - another adult futuristic film about artificial intelligence - see difference? I mean things like solar weapon making stains on sun - it would be good in comic book for kids; those melodramatic dialogues between Rock & Duke ("I told you don't call me FATHER!"); the boy disapears in burning factory and his uncle don't call the police for help to find him cause it would be too easy etc. Maybe i'm just malicious, but i like to mess about details.
But now i think "melodramatic" would be better word here than "childish".

Anyway it's quite good film.

I showed this film to my mom, and she liked it. Maybe the movie is for some adults because films like this dont always impress them, except for some, but maybe this film is more for kid older than 7 or 8 I suppose. True, the plot is a bit complex but I understood it. I guess I should anyway, Im 13 years old.

I totally agree with Marllow words,specially about the ''In Japan they don’t have the stigma of animation being for children only.''

I am an adult and I like to see animations and cartoons.

children have fun with everything, but my mother ( a latin history teacher ) start sleeping in 20 minutes. :(
music is boring.
plot is predictable.
animation is outstanding, but in europe we want substance not eye candy.

In Tezuka's original manga, Duke Red was a criminal who took on several disguises and was only known by his oversized nose. Most of the characters retain the same look as they had in the original manga. I, for one, hate Tezuka's style because his art is very dated and influenced by Walt Disney, himself. This film is not aimed at any age group. I believe it is intended for the largest audience. Katsuhiro Otomo who wrote the script also created Akira, which is fairly niched within the 16-24 year old niche, specifically the junior high and high school boys when the original manga was serialized in Japan. Metropolis resembles Akira more than Tezuka's original manga, so I think Otomo was trying to get the same sort of messages across that he did with his manga and film that was not enjoyed by such a large audience. Metropolis, I believe, is easily accessible to young, old, male and female audiences. The reason the film looks the way it does and sounds the way it does is to create not only Tezuka's original look and feel (the manga came out around 1950) but also to capture the German futurism that helped inspire Tezuka (the female robot from Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Also, it is correct that Japan does not have the same connotation for animation that is in America. In fact, America is about the only country that views animation as childish. (Percipolus, Triplets of Bevelle) I don't know the reason, but it may have something to do with the fact that the majority of Japanese cinema today is characterized with cheesy overacting.

Agree with that.

Also, many movies that have children as main characters are for adults. I recently watched another anime, Grave of the fireflies, which tells the story of a young boy and his little sister trying to survive alone in Japan during World War II. It´s a very wretched tale and the boy´s sister starves to death in the end. It´s definetely not a film for kids. The main characters illustrate the misery children suffer in war, and to convey that message they had to use children as main characters (besides it makes the film a whole lot more emotional). That´s what was done with this movie too, I believe. Kenichi and Tima represented innocence and because they are children it is even sadder to see what happens to them and how Tima is used by Duke Red.

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