- 2067: Isolation. Japan seals herself off from the eyes of the world in the face of unilateral international policy setting strict limits on the use of robotic technology. The island nation exists only behind a veil of seclusion. No soul shall enter. No soul shall leave. 2077: Revelation. The veil is breached. Japan is infiltrated by agents of the organization S.W.O.R.D., a fighting force operat
2067: Isolation. Japan seals herself off from the eyes of the world in the face of unilateral international policy setting strict limits on the use of robotic technology. The island nation exists only behind a veil of seclusion. No soul shall enter. No soul shall leave.
2077: Revelation. The veil is breached. Japan is infiltrated by agents of the organization S.W.O.R.D., a fighting force operating outside of the protection of the United States and her allies. Their mission: Determine if the Japanese are developing banned robotic bio-technology, forbidden due to its threat to humankind.
In the battle between machine and man, humanity stands to suffer most.
Includes 2 hours of special features:
Opening Comments from the Locarno Film Festival
Following Sori’s Work as an Animation Creator
Voice Acting Footage
Creating the Cities in VEXILLE
2007 Tokyo International Anime Fair Event
Sori’s Guest Lecture at Digital Hollywood Tokyo
An Old Friend Pays Sori a Visit
Behind-the-Scenes Footage of ICHI
Creating VEXILLE’s 3D Animation
Creating the Music in VEXILLE
Sori’s Closing Comments
The Secrets of VEXILLE
Original TV Spots and PreviewsVexille (2007, subtitled 2077 Nippon Sakoku: “2077 Isolation of Japan”) is a CG/motion capture film that apes the popular Appleseed series. In 2077, 10 years after Japan withdrew into a sort of neo-Tokugawa isolation to pursue illegal cyborg technology, most of the population has been turned into androids by the evil Daiwa Heavy Industries. Vexille, a tough-as-press-on-nails mecha pilot in theDeunan Knute mode, joins in a raid on the remains of Tokyo to learn about the threat this technology poses. An unremarkable series of chases, mecha battles and Morris-the-Explainer-scenes ensues as Vexille, her beau Leon, and the few Japanese who still cling to their humanity destroy Daiwa’s fortified island headquarters. Most of the story elements are borrowed other films, including Appleseed Ex Machina, Dune and the two Ghost in the Shell features. Vexille was clearly a low-budget production: the poorly rendered figures ressemble wax puppets and their shadows shrink and grow like stains on their clothing. (Rated PG-13: violence, violence against women, tobacco use) –Charles Solomon
Stills from Vexille (click for larger image)
Buy “Vexille “ For Only $17.98
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March 10, 2010
#1
Ipicked up the import Japanese HD-DVD/DVD set for $50 and don’t regret and thign.It’s the BEST animation i’ve ever seen, easily eclipsing anything done by Pixar here i the states.I’ll likely pick up the US dvd version just to have the English language track and easily reccommend the US dvd VERSION TO any ANIME/Animation fan.
March 10, 2010
#2
And if your fate is to see this video game disquised as a ‘movie’ then your ‘Fate’ is no better than mine.
What a steaming piece of junk.
I won’t bother deliniating the proposterous plot. I won’t lampoon the inane ‘script’ since this is more a ripoff than the Scary Movie series. At least those films didn’t have any false pretesnse.
What a pretty package. Lovely to look at, but don’t get downwind. I’ve seen worse movies. Hence the two stars: One for the processes used in making the film look so amazing, one for the set pieces, which so long as you overlooked anything else, were pretty to look at.
But I’ve seen better scripts on YouTube.
Drivel. Unrelenting misdirection. Huge logical disconnects. And voice work nearly as good as the stuff you might catch on Saturday morning cartoons.
This is an action piece, so you expect a high death count. But honestly, the botched attempts at ‘meaning’ and pathos were almost humorous. Too bad to enjoy, and not bad enough to enjoy as a ‘bad’ movie.
Stay away.
March 10, 2010
#3
The idea is that we’re losing our humanity to the Epcot world of techno dependence in which we find ourselves ensconced. A lot of sound and fury, fueled by a high-powered techno-ambient soundtrack, with a ton of computer graphics wrapped into the slick animation package. The scale of the theme is grand, with the life like animation (many the oriental characters, however, have blue eyes such as Vexille – the heroine) – occassionally drifting into the profiles of live actors (such as in 300), providing the perfect nexus for comtemplating the ever thinning demarcation between natural and artificial intelligence. The film also ruminates on the current state of corporate anarchy and the ends to which that might lead. The script, however, is derivative to such a degree (almost as if the filmakers took the entire catalog of the films they saw in film school and dumped bits and pieces of them into this one) as to be laughable. In fact, members of the audience at The Santa Barbara Film Festival were laughing. Anime meets the Teminator films, meets the Batman films, meets Apollo 13, meets films of The Fast and the Furious genre, meets Dune, meets The Man Who Would Be King, meets 12 Monkies, meets Bowfinger???, and so forth. Animators seem to feel they have license to lift scenes from any non-aminated film with impunity, and therein lies the rub. Thus, the intended philosophical seriousness does not quite come across. But, as the audience to which this onslaught of techno-glitzy violence is directed is for the most part too young to have seen the films from which at lest 80% of the script and set concepts are derived, the point is moot. For this audience: you ought to be thinking about your robotic tendencies, especially on the freeway.
March 10, 2010
#4
Vexille is a member of a United States covert agency called S.W.O.R.D. that must infiltrate 2077 Japan in order to uncover the conspiracy that lies within the secretive, shielded country. Inside, they find a land ravaged by the side effects of a high tech plague that turns humans into androids. The world’s only hope against the spread of the condition lies in Vexille’s alliance with a group of infected rebels led by the beautiful Maria against the corporation behind it all.
“Vexille” is a rather simple and not all that original story about the danger of taking technology too far. As you’d expect, a group of diehard rebels work together to take down the evil company behind everything. Still, Vexille’s take is an interesting one, after you get past the first 30 minutes or so which I found a bit dull. There’s not really enough character development, and I personally don’t think the animation looked as good as everyone else thought it did. Oh, the visuals were great, as you can see in stills from the film. I was blown away by the stills too. Watching it, I thought it was entirely a CGI film (so I guess it might as well have been), but apparently the characters are done in traditional animation with a special shading technique that makes them look CGI (at least, that’s what every source I can find says, but this is where some behind-the-scenes material would have been appreciated). The problem was in the animation itself. During the action scenes, it was very good, but whenever the characters were not engaged in major, quick action, their movements didn’t look very natural at all and a bit sluggish. It looked like bad motion-capture work, and this made me feel very much like I was watching the little movies you get to see when you pass a level on a video game. Anyone who thinks this stuff looks better than PIXAR or a 2D Disney film is way off. Still, if you like dark future films, the story is interesting, if not very original, and the visuals are unique to say the least. Unfortunately, as I implied before, there are no extras on the DVD, unless you consider trailers for other Anime DVDs to be extras.
March 10, 2010
#5
I wasted money buying this movie cuz I heard it was from the people from the Appleseed movies. There are pretty much only two scenes from this movie that has any action, the very beginning (the assault on the meeting) which lasts a few minutes, and the very end (where vexille has to grab and pull a robots machine gun into aim to take down a helicopter) which lasts like 10 seconds. All the rest of the movie is just a bunch of bullcrap of the americans trying to figure out what the japanese are up to, then find out they’ve essentially been “wiped out.” I saw on the cover of the movie it said “Balls-to-the-wall action – Geek magazine.” If they think this is balls to the wall action, i think Geek magazine just lost all credibility. I guess being “geeks” they thought it was an awesome, action packed movie simply because it was in CG. The movie sucked. Do not buy it, if I could get my money back, I would. I let my friend borrow it, and its so bad that it never came up in conversation…..needless to say, I’m not interested in him giving it back to me. SAVE YOUR MONEY AND LOOK SOMEWHERE ELSE!