Ready to meet “Ghost Cat Anzu?”
The French/Japanese co-production, based on the manga of the same name by Takashi Imashiro, hits theaters on Friday courtesy of GKids — and we’ve got an exclusive clip, which you can watch below.
In “Ghost Cat Anzu,” a young girl named Karin (voiced by Noa Gotô) accompanies her father to the countryside. It’s there that she encounters the title character, an oafish supernatural entity who hustles as a masseuse and wears his cell phone around his neck (he is voiced by Mirai Moriyama). Together, Anzu and Karin set off on an adventure, which crosses over into spiritual realms and sees them encountering all sorts of bizarre characters.
The movie premiered as part of the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival in May. It played the Annecy International Film Festival less than a month later. It was directed by Yôko Kuno (making her feature debut) and Nobuhiro Yamashita, based on a screenplay by Shinji Imaoka.
What’s really fascinating about “Ghost Cat Anzu” is that they filmed it like it was a live-action movie, which was mostly for reference but also the action would sometimes be rotoscoped over the original photography. This gives the movie a very unique look. Western movies would occasionally do this – something like Ralph Bakshi’s 1983 fantasy film “Fire and Ice” was entirely rotoscoped. Later directors Gore Verbinski and Wes Anderson used similar techniques on “Rango” and “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” respectively (although the photography on those two was for reference for the animators).
This approach makes “Ghost Cat Anzu” feel special and gives the vocal performances texture and depth. With the movie being a French/Japanese co-production, you can feel the sensibilities of both countries in the stylized look of the film and the storytelling as well. It’s very special indeed.
“Ghost Cat Anzu” hits theaters this Friday, in both dubbed and subtitled options.
