The heroine is Ash (Malgorzata Foremniak), one of the aforementioned brunettes, who lives alone in a run-down apartment block with her basset hound. She makes a precarious living playing Avalon, a virtual-reality RPG (role-playing game) with a military theme, in which the losing players end up as "lost" -- i.e., burned-out shells whose connection with reality (or at least our current version of it) has been permanently severed. The grimly ironic name of the game refers to the mythical island where warriors go after their deaths in glorious battle.

An expert player, who vaporizes enemy soldiers and equipment with ease, including a deadly looking monster of a chopper, Ash wants to move to the next, highest level of the game: Special A, which has no reset and, for all but the winners, no return. She is also determined to play solo, despite the urgings of the aged Game Master (Wladyslaw Kowalski) to join a "party" or team.
 

This, so far, is pretty standard woman-on-a-mission stuff. It unfolds, otaku-like, too slowly for strangers to the RPG culture, who may not be as enthralled as initiates with Ash's quest to battle through to the "mission complete" screen and rack up more points on her Avalon gold card.

But once she enters Special A, the game, and the film, moves to another, more complex, level, in which the quest becomes more inner than outer and the objective begins to shift in ways that Ash could not foresee or humanly understand. What is "virtual reality" when you're no longer sure what is virtual and what is real?

This is the same question posed by the Wachowski brothers' "The Matrix" and David Cronenberg's "eXistenZ," and, for fans of those films, Oshii's answers may have a familiar ring. (Though Oshii first got the idea for "Avalon" nearly a decade ago, long before his American and Canadian competition hit the screen.) I liked Oshii's, though: He is not trying to graft heady New Age philosophy onto Hollywood SF and Hong Kong chopsocky cliches ("The Matrix") or film the equivalent of a bad acid trip with gross-out effects ("eXistenZ"). Instead, he is taking his personal RPG obsession to the outer limits, giving "Avalon" a feeling of conviction and commitment the other films lack. Hit the play button -- if you dare.
 

Excerpt from The Japan Times (Mark Schilling) HERE
 

The Video:
This Blu-Ray transfer is a great improvement from previous DVD editions and since the film is intensively post-processed, making it difficult to clearly recognize image flaws, most of my review is based on comparisons with previous SD DVD releases and the SD DVD included in the package.

 

Package:
The usual Bandai double disc set with a standard DVD keep case for each disk (I like that) and another beautiful glossy textured box similar to "Ghost in the Shell" release.

I tested the Blu-Ray I few times in different settings and home theater systems and judging by the result this transfer is free of fatal flaws and many persistent problems among previous releases appear diminished if not totally eliminated. But results varied among the systems/settings I tested, most of the time the Blu-Ray delivered a pristine, calm and pleasantly textured presentation. But in one of the tested plasmas some scenes displayed disturbing giant macro-blocks and agitated noise. A proper adjustment (mostly brightness/contrast) concealed these issues without compromising important details. Know that all previous SD DVD (many compared HERE) releases compared (Miramax and the 2001 Japanese edition) displayed these same problems, often aggravated, and many more. Some TVs were just able to deal with them better.

 

 

The SD DVD included is by itself a considerable upgrade from the previous editions but the Blu-Ray DVD is at least 30% visibly better than this new SD DVD transfer, notably tones, sharpness, and contrast were all cleanly enhanced. (NOTE: comparison was done with the SD DVD upscaled to 1080p. The player and the settings were the same for both formats). To me this is a great achievement considering the problematic source, once used to deliver past troublesome releases, and unless they come up with a complete different and better new master I doubt you will see any improvements in future releases. Note that Miramax has the rights for US distribution and it doesn't seem that anything will come out this decade.

I tried to capture the images closest possible to the original intend for them, I checked some notes, data, internet info, and images from the booklet included. The movie changes from cooler tones to warmer ones often making it difficult to find out what is the correct calibration, but after compiling all the info I got I believe the grabs below are close to intended.

Luiz R.