Roujin-Z movie review & film summary (1996)
As the story opens, scientists are alarmed that there are too many old people.
Ambitious medical students resent them, because geriatric care is seen as a career dead-end. A computerized machine, named the “Z-001,” is invented to provide a permanent home for the elderly. It's a walking, talking combination of a hospital bed, a robot and a computer, and once a patient is installed in one, he's expected to stay there until he dies.
This is quite a machine. It bathes its occupants, massages them, shows them movies and video games, attends to their bathroom functions, diagnoses their ills, and administers medicine. It's powered by an atomic reactor, and even has a built-in safety device: Should its onboard reactor fail, the machine is programmed to instantly bury itself in concrete. What then happens to the patient? I guess they go down with their ships.
Most everybody likes the Z-001, except for a few humanistic types like a young nurse who feels sympathy for the old man who is berthed in one of the prototypes. Japanese folklore teaches that there can be spirits in almost anything, and in the case of this machine, the computer seems to have been inhabited by the spirit of the old man's dead wife, who wants to visit the sea. So, the powerful machine makes an effort to break out of the hospital and visit the seaside, with catastrophic results.
I cannot imagine this story being told in a conventional movie. Not only would the machine be impossibly expensive and complex to create with special effects, but the social criticism would be immediately blue-penciled by Hollywood executives. Health care for the aged may be big on Capitol Hill, but it doesn't sell movie tickets. What’s interesting, as you watch “Roujin-Z,” is how quickly the story itself becomes as interesting as the fact that the movie is animated. Perhaps because of our training with Disney movies, we accept cartoon characters as “real,” and these characters--especially the hapless old man--have a curiously convincing quality.
The dialogue is also intriguing. Dubbed into English, it ranges from standard comic book slang to the thoughtful, literate and controversial. Speech of this level would be dumbed down in a studio rewrite.
The animation, however, is not technically sophisticated by Hollywood standards; the filmmakers are economical with their animation of backgrounds and secondary characters. But here again, there is a gain as well as a loss: They break the film down into storyboarded shots as a comic book might, using unexpected angles and perspectives, shadows and light, surrealism and visual invention, so that the animation, while not as “realistic” as in, say, “Pocahontas,” feels rich and complex.
I am not sure “Roujin-Z” is the film to start with if you're curious about animation. It's more for devotees. My recommendation would be “Akira”--or, for family viewing, the delightful “My Neighbor Totoro,” which, like “Babe,” might actually appeal more to adults than children.
