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Many of the locations in the film are designed either to look exactly like places in Hong Kong or are visually similar. These include; the view of the harbor when Batou and Major are on the boat, the HQ of Hanka, a sign for "Central" seen on the highway as Major heads to the last action scene, and the location of the battle with the spider tank, which looks like the circular pedestrian walkway in Causeway Bay - albeit made to look rundown and covered with vegetation.
In an establishing shot of the city, a Pan Am advert can be seen in the top left. The bankrupt airlines inclusion is a reference to Blade Runner (1982) which also had an in-film advert for them.
The Geisha robots wore full head masks created by Weta Workshop and modeled after Japanese actress Rila Fukushima. The opening or 'exploding' of the Geisha's heads was mechanical rather than CGI. The inner workings of the heads were modeled after clockwork technology.
Several scenes in this film are exact in visual comparison to the original Ghost in the Shell (1995). Some parts shown in the city are even exact re-creations of the original artwork.
For the Japanese dub of the film, the voice actors from Ghost in the Shell (1995) - Atsuko Tanaka (the Major), Akio Ôtsuka (Batou) and Kôichi Yamadera (Togusa) - reprise their roles.
Mamoru Oshii, the Japanese director of the original Ghost in the Shell (1995), has spoken out against the whitewashing controversy surrounding Scarlett Johansson playing Major despite not being Japanese. He gave her his blessing and said "I believe having Scarlett play Motoko was the best possible casting for this movie."