Credited cast: | |||
Megumi Hayashibara | ... | Paprika / Chiba Atsuko (voice) | |
Tôru Furuya | ... | Tokita Kohsaku (voice) | |
Kôichi Yamadera | ... | Osanai Morio (voice) | |
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Katsunosuke Hori | ... | Shima Tora-taroh (voice) |
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Tôru Emori | ... | Inui Sei-jiroh (voice) |
Akio Ôtsuka | ... | Detective Kogawa Toshimi (voice) | |
Hideyuki Tanaka | ... | Guy (voice) | |
Satomi Kôrogi | ... | Japanese Doll (voice) | |
Daisuke Sakaguchi | ... | Himuro Kei (voice) | |
Mitsuo Iwata | ... | Tsumura Yasushi (voice) | |
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Rikako Aikawa | ... | Kakimoto Nobue (voice) |
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Shin'ichirô Ôta | ... | Reporter (voice) |
Satoshi Kon | ... | Jin-nai (voice) | |
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Yasutaka Tsutsui | ... | Kuga (voice) |
Rest of cast listed alphabetically: | |||
Brian Beacock | ... | Hajime Himuro / Kuga (voice) |
Three scientists at the Foundation for Psychiatric Research fail to secure a device they've invented, the D.C. Mini, which allows people to record and watch their dreams. A thief uses the device to enter people's minds, when awake, and distract them with their own dreams and those of others. Chaos ensues. The trio - Chiba, Tokita, and Shima - assisted by a police inspector and by a sprite named Paprika must try to identify the thief as they ward off the thief's attacks on their own psyches. Dreams, reality, and the movies merge, while characters question the limits of science and the wisdom of Big Brother. Written by <jhailey@hotmail.com>
I'm still a bit stunned after watching this movie - and that amazingly OTT theme music is running around my head. I'm not much of an Anime fan - I find most of it simply too juvenile. But this is something else entirely - a crazed storyline, like something Phillip K. Dick would have come up with on mescaline...
I won't attempt much of a summary as its entirely possible I've gotten it all wrong, but it involves a dream detective who may (or may not) be an alter ego of a scientist involved in a machine to read dreams, a detective who may (or may not) have had some involvement a murder he is investigating, a wheelchair bound CEO who..... oh, nevermind, this is pointless! Suffice to say from the very first scene there is a stunning overload of images and overlapping stories, and its difficult to know if even the director had a clear idea of what he was saying. But its never, for one moment boring, and i strongly suspect there are multiple deeper meanings going on here, this is a movie that will stand up to multiple viewings to try to decode all the sub plots and metaphors.
Even if you are not a fan of anime, if you just like dazzling film making that will stretch your imagination - Paprika is for you (and no, i have no idea why she is called Paprika).