Spriggan (2001) (Special Edition)

SPRIGGAN, a Japanese animation film from director Hirotsuge Kawasaki, centers on Noah's Ark, a powerful artifact from an ancient civilization, that is discovered on Mt. Ararat, Turkey. The discovery sets in motion a diabolical plot by the U.S. Pentagon to claim the object as its own property. Opposed to the Pentagon is Arkam, an organization employing armored solders, including the film's protagonist, Yu Ominae, a teenager with superior reflexes. Yu must summon all his strength to defeat the Pentagon's operatives: agile Little Boy, the tank-like Fat Man, and the super powerful brain Captain MacDougal, who looks less than 10 years old. The action in SPRIGGAN will more than satisfy explosion enthusiasts, while anyone who follows the career of the film's supervisor, Katsuhiro Otomo (AKIRA), will appreciate yet another story of a psychic child, a leitmotiv in Otomo's work.

Sketching for the animation was done in Turkey to provide realistic faces and backgrounds to the film, while computer animated effects inside the Ark are as disorienting as the effects in last third of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. The film is based on a manga of the same name, three volumes of which have been released in the U.S. as STRIKER. SPRIGGAN is the directorial debut of Kawasaki, whose love of the ultraviolent manga is evident in the film.