So I just saw Ghost in The Shell. First complaint? Why is it that the major has no nipples? That suit was tight, she was wet and cold and no nipples? Either Hanko made a poor design choice or it was an oversight. Secondly, all that beautiful cityscape? That was all Hong Kong not Tokyo. So if you are a fan and want to see exactly what you see on screen just without the hologram ads, buy a ticket to Hong Kong not Tokyo. I've shot on those locations dozens and dozens of times. It's truly an amazing city. It's my home and I love it. Thirdly, what's up with SJ's David Carridine inspired make up? They were almost successful at making this adaptation work if they just didn’t try to orientalize SJ’s perfectly white face. Their take on this is that the Major is the white cyborg body that holds the brain of a Japanese girl Motoko Kusanagi, if they just stuck to their guns and didn’t try and make her look Asian, I think the “swticharoo” would have been more successful and less patronizing. If you’re gonna go white go full white.

So is this whitewashing? I guess it is. Is it worse than Dragon Ball Z or Edge of Tomorrow(All You Need is Kill?) I don’t think so. I mean at least they didn’t try and set it in Neo-New York with all white people(wink* Akira). I think they were more sensitive than most at integrating the cultural background of the story than most adaptations have in the past. (Memoirs of a Geisha was a bit more offensive to me with Chinese actors playing Japanese Geisha) Was it a bad film? I didn’t think so. I honestly liked a lot about this movie. The visuals were great, not over powering and very smartly used plus my one of my favorite actors "Beat" Takeshi was in it. I loved the original anime and this was a very good translation of that however, I wish they spent more time with the one of the main themes of identity that the original anime did but overall it was a decent movie.

Does whitewashing bother me? Yes. Does it bother me in GITS? Not that much. I buy the twist. I buy that Matoko Kusanagi’s brain could have been put in the “shell” of a white android. I once had this idea to make two short films short films, played back to back, (continued in next post)