GHOST IN THE SHELL Returns to Theaters in 4K This September, Watch the Trailer and Get Tickets Now
Thirty years later, Ghost in the Shell still looks like it came from the future. Now, Mamoru Oshii’s landmark 1995 anime film is heading back to theaters in 4K, giving fans another chance to experience its cyberpunk world where it belongs, on a massive screen.
The 4K theatrical release arrives September 18, and tickets are already on sale. A trailer has also been released to remind us just how damn cool this movie still looks.
Written by Kazunori Ito and adapted from Masamune Shirow’s 1989 manga, Ghost in the Shell takes place in 2029. That date seemed pretty far off when the movie was released in 1995, but now we’re only a few years away. Thankfully, cybernetic bodies and consciousness-hacking computer viruses haven’t become part of everyday life just yet.
The official synopsis reads: “2029: A female cybernetic government agent, Major Motoko Kusanagi, and the Internal Bureau of Investigations are hot on the trail of ‘The Puppet Master,’ a mysterious and threatening computer virus capable of infiltrating human hosts.
“Together with her fellow agents from Section 9, Kusanagi embarks on a high-tech race against time to capture the omnipresent entity. Director Mamoru Oshii’s award-winning cyber-tech thriller, based on the comic book by Masamune Shirow, has established itself as one of the leading Japanese animation films of all time.”
The Japanese voice cast includes Atsuko Tanaka as Major Motoko Kusanagi, along with Akio Otsuka, Koichi Yamadera, and Tamio Oki.
There’s a reason Ghost in the Shell continues to come up whenever people talk about the most important anime and science fiction movies ever made. Oshii created a visually incredible cyberpunk thriller that digs into identity, consciousness, technology, and what it actually means to be human when the boundaries between people and machines start disappearing.
Its influence also reached well beyond anime. Hollywood filmmakers took notice, and its DNA can be spotted in movies that followed, most famously The Matrix and other cyberpunk sci-fi projects that explored similar ideas and imagery.
For longtime fans, seeing Ghost in the Shell restored in 4K on the big screen sounds like an awesome way to revisit it. For anyone who has somehow never seen it, this is about as good an introduction as you’re going to get.
Watch the trailer, grab some tickets, and get ready to plug back into one of the greatest cyberpunk anime films ever made.