Studio: Bandai Visual / Honneamise
Video: 1080p - 16:9 - AVC (29Mbps)
Overscan Prevention Bars: Yes
Region: All / DVD 2

Audio: Japanese Dolby TrueHD 5.1 (� 1.9Mbps 16-bit/48kHz), Japanese PCM 2.0 (1.5Mbps), English Dolby Digital 5.1 (640kbps)

Subtitles: Japanese, English, none

Disc: Dual-Layered Blu-Ray (50GBs) + Dual-Layered DVD
Runtime: 113 min.

Extras: Trailers, Booklet

Release Date: August 24th, 2007
Package: Blu-Ray + DVD Box

Synopsis:
The year is 1999. A unit of Labors has been deployed to Southeast Asia as part of a UN peacekeeping mission. Forced into a confrontation with local guerilla fighters, the unit is destroyed after failing to receive permission to fight back. The unit commander, Japan Self-Defense Forces officer Yukihito Tsuge, subsequently vanishes without a trace.

It is now the winter of 2002. The former members of the Special Vehicles Section 2, 2nd Unit, have transferred out. Out of a clear sky, a single missile is dropped and bombs the Yokohama Bay Bridge � and a video taken by chance at the scene shows what appears to be an F-16 fighter in the vicinity. The public uproar that follows targets the JSDF, which claims that it has no such aircraft as the one seen on tape, and distrust of the JSDF grows until one day people wake up to the fact an atmosphere of intense discord pervades their society, and that Tokyo, the �information city, has lost the ability to function as such.

The Film:
After three years of silence, the world of PATLABOR entered the new millennium. The setting of PATLABOR 2 THE MOVIE is in the winter of 2002 after the former Labor pilots and personnel of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Special Vehicles Section 2�s 2nd Unit � which was originally formed to cease the crimes committed by Labors � have transferred to various other positions and new locations except for Commander Gotoh and Officer Yamazaki. It seemed that people in Tokyo were spending ordinary but peaceful days until the day a single missile bombs the Yokohama Bay Bridge out of the blue.

PATLABOR 2 THE MOVIE is a controversial work that incorporated many domestic and international issues that Japan was facing at the time of the film's creation. Director Mamoru Oshii's unique sense of concern over Japan is apparent all through the film � in both the nature of the story's political backdrop, and in how realism is stressed within the animation itself. The overall Japanese animation landscape took a decidedly different turn as a result of this film, and transformed radically as the 1990s progressed.

Tremendous economic growth took place in Japan during the late 1980s, but the economic bubble went bust with the 1990 market crash, which proved a blow to the morale of many Japanese. In addition to these domestic changes, the outside world also brought a dramatic transformation to Japan�s circumstances around that time such as collapse of the Berlin Wall, outbreak of Gulf War, end of Cold War, disintegration of the Soviet Union, and most importantly, Japan Self-Defense Forces participation in United Nations peacekeeping operations, which caused extensive debate in Japan, whose constitution does not officially regard JSDF as a military force.

PATLABOR 2 was created against these events and the most compelling reason why Oshii adopted such a theme may be the director's sense of alarm over the radical shifts seen in Japan's domestic and international situation since 1989, the date of the first PATLABOR film.
 

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