Paprika

[KitKat]

http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony/paprika/trailer/

Looks like this is scheduled for release on May 25th in the US. Hopefully it will come to Canada too. I've been wanting to go see an anime in the theatre for a while, and this looks promising. Anyone else heard anything about it?

[Ryllharu]

Just the basic premise of it and what other films the director has done.

He directed Paranoia Agent, Millennium Actress, and Perfect Blue, the latter being proof enough that Paprika will be an amazing psychothriller. I'm a huge fan of Perfect Blue, and though I was a little disappointed in the story of Millennium Actress, I loved its presentations.

From the three trailers I've seen, take Millennium Actress's seemless transitions and combine them with the thriller aspects and writing of Perfect Blue, and you've got Paprika.

From ANN:
In the near future, a revolutionary new psychotherapy treatment called PT has been invented. Through a device called the "DC Mini" it is able to act as a "dream detective" to enter into people's dreams and explore their unconscious thoughts. Before the government can pass a bill authorizing the use of such advanced psychiatric technology, one of the prototypes is stolen, sending the research facility into an uproar. In the wrong hands, the potential misuse of the device could be devastating, allowing the user to completely annihilate a dreamer's personality while they are asleep. Renowned scientist, Dr. Atsuko Chiba (played by Megumi Hayashibara), enters the dream world under her exotic alter-ego, code name "PAPRIKA," in an attempt to discover who is behind the plot to undermine the new invention.

I've been looking forward to it for months.

[Munsu]

I've been waiting for this for some quite some time now, hopefully we'll see a dvdrip of it soon.

[Assassin]

Indeed, looks very intresting. Mite even force one of my friends to see it if it comes out in theatres.

btw, im still waiting for that soundtrack kitkat >.>

[Kraco]

The plot certainly sounds more interesting than in the live action movie some years ago (The Cell was the name if memory serves. Never liked it much). Well, even though I've Perfect Blue on DVD, I can't say I'm a huge fan of it, as I'm not generally speaking a huge fan of any psychopath stuff. However, this doesn't sound exactly like that.

[Kraco]

This bell pepper got a screener leaked, and subsequently released:

Paprika screener - jpn audio, eng subs (http://datorrents.com/download.asp?id=20119&name=paprika-dvdscr-xvid.avi.torrent)

I haven't checked it out myself, but if somebody's interested, there it is. I'll most likely wait for a proper release, unless somebody watches this and reports the quality isn't bad and there isn't a big red cross over the picture...

[Munsu]

I think I'll wait for the DVDrip myself too. I think it's always worth the wait for movies as the art quality is important in anime movies for me.

[Sandldan]

Just fell in love with the trailer for the movie, will definitely have to keep an eye out for an dvdr release

[Lucifus]

That trailer contained some of the weirdest stuff I've ever seen. I'll definately check it out though. Looks...interesting to say the least. If it comes out in Theaters I'm forcing some of my friends to come see it with me.

[Assassin]

I downloaded the dvd screener last nite and i just watched about half of it. Thought i'd give my opinion here for anyone who's intrested.

First of all, animation wise, its fairly decent. Its definately not crisp like in the trailer, but thats to be expected. I did notice some blurriness of the picture, but i have a feeling that might just be my computer. Its nothing major though, but for those of you who like thier animation/video quality, its probably best to wait for the dvd rip or go watch it in theaters.

As for kraco's concern about a big red cross, theres nothing like that, and so far i haven't seen any "this screener is only for ___. It is not to be distributed" messages (im 48 min into it so far). There is however a blurred out horizontal line across the top of the screen which you can see in the screenshots below. Again, its not that big a deal, but if you're a perfectionist then it might bother you. Another thing is that the subtitles get cutoff on the bottom. Im not sure why that is....it looks almost like somebody made a cam, and just aimed it a little too high so the bottom of the screen doesn't show. Its nothing major, and all the subs make perfect sense. Just the Y's have the bottom line cut out so they look like V's (again, you can see this in the screenshots).

There does seem to be some audio/video sync issues which start about 48 min in. I dont know yet if they fix themselves, but it does get a bit annoying. The audio is delayed by about 2 seconds. From what i can tell it seems to increase as the movie progresses.

Story wise, it's pretty entertaining. Kind of a surreal who-dun-it. But i have to admit, it would be a lot more fun to watch with the pretty graphics and animation seen in the trailer. The screener doesn't do it justice. I do love the soundtrack, particularly "Lounge" which is the song playing in the trailer.

My recommendation is, download the screener if you have time/bandwidth to spare, but only use it as a guide to decide whether you wanna get the proper dvd release, or go watch it in theaters.

Here are the screens:
http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/240/paprika1we8.th.jpg (http://img83.imageshack.us/my.php?image=paprika1we8.jpg) http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/6803/paprika2nx3.th.jpg (http://img83.imageshack.us/my.php?image=paprika2nx3.jpg) http://img112.imageshack.us/img112/7306/paprika3ww2.th.jpg (http://img112.imageshack.us/my.php?image=paprika3ww2.jpg) http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/6875/paprika4og9.th.jpg (http://img168.imageshack.us/my.php?image=paprika4og9.jpg)

[yallo]

Oohh Paprika. I watched it when it screened in the theatres locally late last year.

What happens when your dreams and fantasies spill over into reality and overtake it? Found it to be quite a twisted story despite the cheerfully brightly coloured animation. A little freakish actually. Kinda reminded me of the OP of the anime series, Paranoia Agent (also by the same director Satoshi Kon), where it shows the characters laughing and for some reason it just freaks me out. Like what Assassin said, Paprika has this surreal feel about it. But I like it much better than Millenium Actress. Worth a watch, I'd say.