Dubbed into English and released theatrically with a whisper in select North
American theatres, Perfect Blue is an anime film of the most bizarre and disturbing
that has been seen since... since... well, in a long time, suffice it to say.

The story centres around Muri, a young woman who we see at the very end of her
career as a pop idol in Japan. We are shown her last concert and, in flashbacks,
the decision to end her career in the area of singing and to make her an actress.
The number Muri and her band play is great fun, very upbeat and ultimately cheesy.
Had it been sung in the original Japanese, it would have been even greater because,
let's face it, J-Pop was only meant to be heard in Japanese; that's the only way it
works.

Anyhoo, the fact remains that she quits the business of an idol-star and moves into
the field of acting. Here she is given almost no recognition as her two former band
members begin to taste great success as they continue their singing careers. Only
when her character in an on-going murder-mystery is raped in a strip club is Muri
given a chance to finally stretch her role. Her character becomes more prevalent in
the series, and her fame begins to rise.

So does her mental stress.

The strange events begin when she is hooked up onto the web to a site called "Muri's
Room," which is a fan-run site supposedly chronicling her day-to-day life. (a little
warning, though, Muri is a bit of a ditz when it comes to the internet, at least
initially, so you'll have to bear with it) The problem is that the site is extremely
detailed, so much so that you cannot help but make the obvious assumption that Muri
is being stalked.

Then a fan-letter addressed to her explodes in her agent's hand, wounding him but leaving
him otherwise fine ("It's alright," he says while clutching his hand on the ground).
Then, after the simulated rape scene, the writer to the series she is co-starring in is
brutally murdered. She begins having hallucinations about herself, as if her personality
was split into two, one claiming to be the "real" Muri. Before long it's almost imossible
for either Muri or the viewer to determine what is reality and what is fantasy.

This movie messes with your mind. Half the time you won't know a damned thing that's
going on. You'll look at your friends with that "What the hell is going on?" look on
your face about twenty times throughout the 80 to 90 minutes that the movie runs. Also,
be forewarned that the simulated rape scene is done so realisitically that it's hard
to tell if it's really "simulated" or not, which makes that scene the hardest in the
entire movie to watch. Also, what violence that's in this movie (there isn't a whole
lot but it's there) the violence is quite graphic. Brutally graphic, actually. Oh, and
there's just a tad (I'm under-exagerating, here) bit too much nudity in this movie for
its own good. I have no problem with nudity, and what's in this movie goes to put certain
events into context, but there's one scene where nude shots of Muri are flashed inbetween
shots of a man being murdered; the nudity served its purpose, but soon became too much.
"All right, we get the point, get on with it," was what I wanted to shout at the screen.

Of course, what is an animated movie without animation? If you go to see this, don't expect
the greatest of quality. I'm not saying that it's badly animated, not at all. The animation
is quite good, actually. The murder scenes are animated with a gruesome fluidity and detail.
Even the simulated rape scene is done a bit too well. Even the animation of the day-to-day
activities of Muri are quite fluid. The problem is, however, that this is all animation that
we've seen before. It breaks no new ground, the way Akira, Ghost in the Shell, or the more
recent Princess Mononoke (which, coincidentally, had the best animation that I've ever seen
in my life). The movie looks nice, and it moves better than most North American animated movies,
but there are times when short-cuts are obvious. During the opening scene, for instance, when
we have many fan-boys discussing Muri and her career, the animation is sub-par for any animated
feature: They have about three animations per person, and you can see the shadows of where they
were placed over the background, much like the early episodes of South Park. The rest of the
movie soars above this shoddy, money-saving technique, but it never quite reaches the heights
of the aforementioned films.

The end result? Perfect Blue is a great movie, and even well-dubbed. It's not quite
perfect, though, with a bit too much nudity and a simulated rape scene that's so ambiguous
that it's hard to tell if it's actually supposed to have happened or not. These points
aside, however, it's got one of the best, most twisting and brain-hurting plots since
Fight Club, but it's no where near the same. Reality is questioned, and you'll never know
what's real and what isn't until the very end of the movie, which actually wraps everything
up nicely. It's a good movie, and worth seeing, if you can stomach the rape, nudity, and
graphic violence.

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