Ghost's opening moments take a rather stylish nighttime descent through the computerized aura of a 21st-century Hong Kong, coming to rest on a still, short-haired woman sitting atop a skyscraper. After a detached discussion with her police colleagues, she sheds her clothing and leaps from the building, right into a contentious meeting among diplomats. Something messy ensues, but she makes her escape by vanishing into the street below, thanks to her nudity-enabled “therm-optic camouflage.”

The woman is Major Motoko Kusanagi, an elite operative for a government agency known as Section 9. As with many a cyberpunk protagonist, she's reticent and highly contemplative, but unlike, say, Neuromancer's Henry Dorsett Case, there's a method to her moods: her body is mostly artificial, with only a portion of her brain being organic and thus exuding the undefined psuedo-spiritual “ghost” that qualifies her, however marginally, as human. Yet Motoko's robotic frame and its superhuman uses are clearly assets in her work with her less-acrobatic Section 9 compatriots, who include the concerned, cyber-eyed Batou, the division's wizened leader Aramaki, and a laconic, unmodified average cop named Togusa.

The technological advances of the next century have, of course, evolved the nature of law enforcement by equal measures. Heavily wired human brains can now be hacked just like computers, and things such as identity and memory have new vagueness, even among average citizens. Motoko and her comrades see much of this in their investigations of an expatriate programmer, an unintentional hacker of a garbage-collector, and a street thug who's both more and less dangerous than he appears. The clues uncovered all carry the operational residue of someone known only as “The Pupper Master,” and, stranger still, this mysterious netrunner strikes a chord within the existentially minded Motoko.

Though Masamune Shirow's original Ghost in the Shell manga was an enjoyable weave of techno-political intrigue, it also embraced humorous and exaggerated moments amid its grittier themes. For his adaptation, director Mamoru Oshii jettisons any goofy disruptions in favor of a realistic and visually striking film. More convincing than the dank, dayless wasteland of Blade Runner, Ghost's take on the future is merely a slightly advanced version of today's Asian cities. In this world, Oshii freely vents his fondness for languid, dialogue-free cinematic musing (and for Bassett hounds), and the resulting sequences are most absorbing, particularly when backed by Kenji Kawai's haunting soundtrack. Showing the next century as a bleak urban hellscape may make a film look cool, but as Ghost evinces, there's far more thought to be provoked by, say, a semi-contemporary shot of a woman glimpsing an office worker who could be her twin.

Even without Oshii's intriguing scenery, Ghost's central story is quite gripping. Scriptwriter Kazunori Ito (Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Patlabor, .hack) twists the film's focus from a police investigation to an identity crisis and back again, always offering something new to ponder, and he even puts a fresh reflection on St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians. Though the supporting characters are seldom developed beyond amusing two-dimensional bit players, Motoko remains a remarkable lead, a tensely willed woman who's able to run government-sponsored assassinations while still questioning the very artifice of her being. Even her appearances for the sake of titillation have subtler echoes; stare at Motoko's naked frame all you want, but can you really find her body sexual once you've seen it assembled like a car?

As science fiction goes, Ghost is no deeper than a brisk cyberpunk novel, but it's also a wealth of kinetic action. Oshii's love of moody interludes doesn't keep him from creating intense firefights, car chases, and more. Aided by excellent animation and nicely infused CG effects, the film bounces from inquisitive points to violent reality, climaxing with a pitched battle between a massive tank and a desperately outmatched Motoko. Viewers tend to disparage Ghost's blunt finale, or at least cite it as the film's weakest link, but I can't hold the same view. The ending note isn't unfulfilling, as the story has already laid its clearest problems to rest and merely opens the door on another matter, leaving a sense of promise instead of absolute closure.

If pressed to name the movie's greatest flaw, I'd point to its voice acting. Most of the English cast members have proven themselves in other productions, but they seem either poorly directed or poorly matched to characters in Ghost. Though the Puppet Master has a deep, otherworldly intonation, Mimi Woods (Shayla-Shayla in El Hazard) is too stiff as Motoko, and Richard Epcar (most recently Ziggy in Xenosaga) only seems a suitable Batou for half of the time. The dub's script also has odd hiccups, and its closing line is odd (doesn't "infinite" suggest that something's already vast?). The Japanese side has its own problems; Atsuko Tanaka is a fair Motoko and Akio Otsuka a decent Batou, but the Puppet Master's voice can't touch the booming dub counterpart. Then there's the problem of the annoyingly large subtitles, which are often stacked in the middle of the screen, obscuring important details. All the same, I remain thankful that the film wasn't shipped out for a Manga UK dub.

Since its debut, trace elements of Ghost in the Shell have been spotted everywhere from video games like Fear Effect to the multimedia juggernaut of The Matrix, and it isn't hard to see why. The movie's spectacular visual punch and surfeit of memorable scenes are well worth emulating, yet it's also an intellectually arresting and well-directed meditation on the natures of men and machines. Ghost may get an awful lot of attention even today, but it's all deserved.