But having said that, Oshii will still be Oshii which means that Sky Crawlers is a breathtaking piece of CG enhanced movie art, with amazing computer generated scenery and hand drawn animation. And yet Oshii still manages to fit in questions of identity, love and fear of technology into Sky Crawlers. The same type of questions that we have seen, and gotten so used to in so many of his other movies. So yes in many ways Sky Crawlers is the most mainstream film Oshii has directed since Patlabor.
Yūichi Kannami is a fighter pilot known as “Kildren” children that never age genetically designed to live eternally in adolescence until shot down in an air battles presented commercially as a peacetime entertainment, for which they are produced. After all, your physical reflexes and responsiveness are at their peak in your teen years, which would make the “Kildren” a reasonable choice as pilots for these war games.
With his only childhood memory consisting of intense flight training, Yuichi’s arial dogfights coexist with his struggle to find his missing past and piece together his past. But things get more complicated, when his beautiful, young female commander Suito is reluctant to discuss the fate of the pilot that Yuichi is replacing or the strangely perfect condition of the previous pilot’s aircraft.
But when a group of tourists appears on the military base declaring themselves “fans” of Yūichi and is fighter squad, you get the idea that this is some sort of perverse game to keep the people entertained, arial combat to the death so to speak a modern day version of gladiators. And in this ring there is one undeafeated ace pilot that has killed many “Kildren” only known as “The Teacher.”
It does not take Kannami long to become the military bases ace pilot, shooting down two enemy planes on his very first mission. We experience life through Kannami’s eye, from the first time he meets his commanding officer to his aerial dog fights and the daily routine he follows as a fight pilot. The style of Sky Crawlers is very distinctly noir and adds to the “World War 2″ atmosphere and feel of the movie.
This all takes place with muted emotions between the different characters in Sky Crawlers cloaked in their own hidden agendas. And as the movie progresses you get to see the relationship between Kannami and his base commander grow. This all takes place admits rumors that she shot her previous lover, the one that Kannami was sent to replace. And as the movie progresses we learn that the war may not be what it seems and we learn the true fate of the “Kildren”.
Sky Crawlers is one of Mamoru Oshii’s new master pieces which I rate right up there with some of his older works like Patlabor. And unlike Ghost in the Shell 2, Sky Crawlers does not loose itself in the mythos that usually surrounds Oshii`s films. Sky Crawlers is a stunning visual piece of animated work that is well balanced out showing the drama that surrounds war. Very much recommended to any fan of Oshii`s works or any fan that wants to watch something that makes you sit and think after the credits roll by.