Written & Directed by Katsuhiro Otomo
The Pitch: In 1988 the Japanese government drops an atomic bomb on Tokyo after ESP experiments on children go awry. In 2019, 31 years after the nuking of the city, Kaneda, a bike gang leader, tries to save his friend Tetsuo from a secret government project. He battles anti-government activists, greedy politicians, irresponsible scientists and a powerful military leader until Tetsuo's supernatural powers suddenly manifest.
Revisiting older films, especially ones that have proved seminal in their medium or genres, presents a quandary. If the film is as good as everyone thinks it is, it makes you wonder why others are still bothering. If it's bad, the perceived political-incorrectness, underdeveloped film-making and indecipherable elements of the plot become crushing weights which tear down all the things you loved about it in the first place. And so we come to Akira's 4K re-issue and Imax presentation with the hope that skew on one side of that chasm or at least find a bridge across it where we can rest safely in the middle.
First, we have to get the technical razzamatazz out of the way: Yes, the film looks wonderful in 4K and Imax. Akira was always a film that dominated by it's visuals. It's antecedents bring you full circle: Tokyo inspires Blade Runner. Blade Runner inspires the film version of Akira. The chicken and the egg race each other. Film is a melting pot of influence, homage and ideas. Films don't ask 'where do I come from?' That's left up to the audience's curiosity. Yet, you can feel Ridley Scott's ghost haunting the film, it's visuals and strangely its sound, too. There omnipresent, thunderous 'BOOM' that echoes over shots of the vast, twinkling cityscape reminiscent of Blade Runner and the pitched, enticing electronic chatter of the military scientists' computers straight from Alien. Akira creates texture and mood magnificently. And that's before you take into account the score, which taking a leaf from the Sergio Leone / Ennio Morricone book, was recorded before the film was made by the collective Geinoh Yamashirogumi, and composed by the scientist and composer Shōji Yamashiro. The score matches the visuals for beautiful experimentation.
The film asks you to treat members of a delinquent Bōsōzoku gang (which were prevalent in '80s and '90s Japan during Akira's inception) as both victims and heroes, then makes it impossible for you to really have any sympathy for them. Tetsuo, like his peers is insecure and volatile. Even more so as his powers awaken. Kaneda, his best friend, doesn't want to stop him because he sees the inherent danger in Tetsuo's growing power, but more out of a churlish need to look cool in front Kei, the resistance fighter he lusts after. Though the films teens grow in size and power, emotionally they don't advance much. It's a shame because there was a chance for real character development. Instead, they evolve psychically and therefore the emotional engagement starts to evaporate. One could almost say this about the film itself, that loses focus often, yet still wows with it's visual style and well-choreographed, yet messy action scenes.When action happens in the movie it happens beautifully. The combat – especially in the early biker gang fights – has a satisfying, wince-inducing crunch. It's like the movie is a repugnant, rebellious teenager, coming in with attitude, showing other films of the time how it's done and reaching for a philosophical pretense that isn't really there.
TO EVEN REACH FOR THIS LEVEL OF LAYERING WAS RARE FOR THE ‘80S
That's not to knock Otomo and his fellow creators. To even reach for this kind of layering in the mid '80s was rare, as was the crossover appeal of Japanese animated cinema. The film does lack the relentless forward momentum of the Manga volumes, though. This is especially true towards the end, where you get the sense that Otomo and his crew just didn't know how to compress the big ideas into a satisfying climax. So how did the film become so influential? And more importantly, is it worth seeing now? Well, the application of style is key to Akira's success and it deserves its place in film history for that alone. The animation remains both of and ahead of its time. Like so much of the large-scale cinematic works to originate in Japan, the looming spectre of Hiroshima and Nagasaki hang over Akira. The doom that awaits the denizens of the new metropolis is wrought in a blinding flash of light, expanding to wipe all traces of civilisation from the screen. It gives one a feeling that significantly advanced cultures like ours will always destroy themselves and that perhaps this world is better left to the Gods. At one stage, Akira leans into true super-villain territory, with the caped Tetsuo breaking Earth's atmosphere to destroy a weapons satellite that has fired on him. But the film refuses again to nominate a hero to match the villain’s potential. As I mentioned, it's tough to sympathise or empathise with anyone in it as their characters are underserved by the roaming plot mechanics. When we need exposition, we're given hallucinogenic sequences of toys coming to life. The lack of exposition and the clarity that normally comes with it does not mean that the film is short on ideas. Suggesting that religion may not be the saviour it's followers think it is, the people praying for the return of 'Lord Akira' are effectively given everything they want with Tetsuo's rise to dominance and they soon regret it. Strange to see such a warning encoded into a film from Japan, a country that treated it's emperor with a God-like fealty and whose mysticism is acknowledged so much more warmly than in Western cultures.
Akira, like all great works of art, is flawed. But it remains significant because of the great leaps forward it took in animation and perception for Anime and by often confusing association for westerners, Manga. It's a bold, rebellious work that suggests the old ways are not only dying, but should be allowed to do so. It's imagination is vast and scope immeasurable. Seeing it so lovingly restored and presented in Imax, I'm reminded of the power it must have had on its debut release and how none of that has been lost in the intervening decades. Akira is film from yesterday that belongs as much in the now as any of Ridley Scott's sci-fi or any masterwork of the genre. It never really gives up it's answers, but at least has the courage and audacity to ask the questions: Who are we? Where do we come from? What is our place in the universe? Bold questions for any film.