is a 1987

Japanese film The has a history that spans more than 100 years. Japan has one of the oldest and largest film industries in the world; as of 2021, it was the fourth largest by number of feature films produced. In 2011 Japan produced 411 feature films that ea ...

directed by

Mamoru Oshii is a Japanese filmmaker, television director and writer. Famous for his philosophy-oriented storytelling, Oshii has directed a number of acclaimed anime films, including ''Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer'' (1984), ''Angel's Egg'' (1985), ...

, co-written with Kazunori Ito, and starring

Shigeru Chiba , known by the stage name , is a Japanese actor, voice actor, talent and sound director from Kikuchi, Kumamoto. He is affiliated with the talent management firm 81 Produce. He is most known for the roles of Yoshihiro Kira from '' JoJo's Bizarre ...

and

Mako Hyodo , better known by the mononym name Mako (sometimes stylised MAKO), is a Japanese voice actress, singer and a member of the band Bon-Bon Blanco, in which her prominent role is as the maraca player. She has also performed in a Japanese television ...

. This is the first film of the ''

Kerberos saga The is an alternate history political thriller media mix created by the Japanese writer and filmmaker Mamoru Oshii in 1986. The most famous installment of the franchise, especially outside Japan, is the 1999 anime film '' Jin-Roh: The Wolf Br ...

''.

Plot

It is the end of the 20th century. The

Metropolitan Police The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...

have begun to lose control of

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

; crime is rampant and people are no longer safe. Their solution: the establishment of the Anti Vicious Crime Heavily Armored Mobile Special Investigations Unit. Created by men and women of high intellect and physical strength who had a particularly strong, even fanatical sense of justice, they were nicknamed "Kerberos", and armed with special body armor called "reinforcement gear" and heavy weaponry. What started as a noble and courageous effort to stop the onslaught of crime soon spiraled out of control. Their overzealous actions and fanatical hatred of evil soon led to less-than police-like behavior. Public criticism grew as their investigative tactics became more aggressive, cruel, and corrupt. The turning point occurred when a Kerberos member, during a routine investigation, beat a misdemeanor offender to death. This was the catalyst and justification to shut the group down forever and dissolve it completely. However, there were those in the Kerberos group who refused to disarm. Three of the elite rebelled against the system, and fought their way through the city. Two were wounded, and unable to escape capture. Only one—senior detective, Koichi Todome, managed to escape, and he promised the others that he would return for them. Several years later, Koichi, a fugitive from the government, returns home for reasons that seem unclear. The city has decayed at an exponential rate and is completely unlike the place he left behind. Everything is surreal and strange, blurred and nondescript. He wanders, trying to find some semblance of his past and to find the comrades he'd left behind. But, the city itself seems to resist him, and there are those who realize the threat that Koichi poses, and his return is more dangerous than anyone realizes. In the end, it is revealed that most of Koichi's exploits in Japan are in fact a dying dream, as he is attacked and killed shortly after returning to Japan.

Cast

- Kōichi Todome *

Machiko Washio is a Japanese actress who works in both live action as well as voice over work for anime. She is known as the voice of Sakura in ''Urusei Yatsura''. Filmography Live action films *''The Red Spectacles'' (1987) (Midori Washio) *'' The Black H ...

- Washio Midori *

Hideyuki Tanaka is a Japanese actor, voice actor and narrator from Tokyo who is attached to Aoni Production. He is a graduate of the Toho Gakuen School of Music. He is most known for his roles in ''One Piece'' (as Donquixote Doflamingo), '' Dokaben'' (as Tarou Y ...

- Sōichirō Toribe * Tessho Genda - Bunmei Muroto *

- Young Lady *

Hideyo Amamoto was a prolific Japanese actor from the Wakamatsu ward of Kitakyūshū best known for portraying Dr. Shinigami in the original '' Kamen Rider'' series as well as many other characters in tokusatsu films and the ''Godzilla'' series. Amamoto also ...

Moongaze Ginji This is a character guide to the radio drama, film, manga and anime works ''Kerberos saga'' (ケルベロス・サーガ, ''keruberosu saga''). Characters are sorted by organizations or groups according to the original works. The English adaptat ...

*offscreen - Hamburger Tetsu *offscreen - Beefbowl Ushigoro *offscreen - Medium Hot Sabu *offscreen - Baked Bean Pastry Amataro *offscreen - Crepe Mami * Ichiro Nagai - Middle-aged man in billiards, taxi driver's voice *

Yasuo Otsuka Yasuo is a masculine Japanese given name. Possible writings Yasuo can be written using many different combinations of kanji characters. Here are some examples: *安雄, "tranquil, male" *安男, "tranquil, man" *安夫, "tranquil, husband" *安� ...

- Taxi driver *

Oikawa Hiroe Oikawa (written: ) is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include: *, Japanese film director *, Japanese fencer *, Japanese figure skater and journalist *, Imperial Japanese Navy admiral *, Japanese actress, television personality a ...

- Oriental Hotel receptionist *

Fuyuki Shinada is a masculine Japanese given name which is occasionally used as a surname and means wintry tree. * (born 1960), Japanese professional wrestler * (born 1955), Japanese photographer * (born 1973), Japanese performance artist In fiction * In the ' ...

- Soba Udon cook *

Fumi Hirano is a Japanese actress, voice actress, singer and essayist who voiced Lum in the anime series ''Urusei Yatsura''. Fumi attended Tamagawa University in Machida, Tokyo where she graduated with a degree in Theatre from the Department of Fine Art ...

- Airport announcer *Kintaroh Sakata - Umibōzu

Production

Several of the cast members are voice actors and appeared in ''

Urusei Yatsura is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Rumiko Takahashi. It was serialized in Shogakukan's ''Weekly Shōnen Sunday'' from September 1978 to February 1987. Its 366 individual chapters were published in 34 ''tankōbon'' volum ...

'', which Oshii worked on as chief director and head writer. ''The Red Spectacles'' is probably Oshii's most literate feature work. Not only, dialogue and narrative parts are prominent over ''drama'' but the film contains a variety of philosophical concepts such as

Free will Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded. Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to actio ...

and

Determinism Determinism is a philosophical view, where all events are determined completely by previously existing causes. Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have developed from diverse and sometimes overlapping motives and consi ...

, mentioned through fables, like "''The Magnet and the Iron Sands''" and "''The Ogre Saved by the Fisherman''", or through classic poet-authors quotes, Shakespeare and Pushkin. The characters refers to European medieval tales and

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical co ...

, such as oral versions of ''

Little Red Riding Hood "Little Red Riding Hood" is a European fairy tale about a young girl and a sly wolf. Its origins can be traced back to several pre-17th century European folk tales. The two best known versions were written by Charles Perrault and the Brother ...

'' and the three-headed watchdog of

Hell In religion and folklore, hell is a location in the afterlife in which evil souls are subjected to punitive suffering, most often through torture, as eternal punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell ...

Cerberus In Greek mythology, Cerberus (; grc-gre, Κέρβερος ''Kérberos'' ), often referred to as the hound of Hades, is a multi-headed dog that guards the gates of the Underworld to prevent the dead from leaving. He was the offspring of the mo ...

Releases

On February 25, 2003, the DVD edition was made available in Japan as part of the ''Mamoru Oshii Cinema Trilogy'' anthology box set, which contained four DVDs and one soundtrack CD. On November 4 of the same year, a subtitled version of ''Akai megane'' was released in North America as both a single DVD and also as part of a US release of the box set. The US version of the trilogy box set has different box artwork and lacks the "Revisited Scene & Production" DVD of the Japanese version. The American ''The Red Spectacles'' DVD edition was reprinted in 2004, and since then is only available in the box set which was printed three times as of 2006 and remains the only edition released outside Japan.

Related works

''The Red Spectacles'' is the first film of the ''

''. Oshii would write a lengthy comic series expanding on the universe. ''

While Waiting for the Red Spectacles is a 1987 radio drama written and directed by Mamoru Oshii. The music is composed and performed by Kenji Kawai. It was released in 2000 as a limited CD drama bundled with '' Kerberos Panzer Cop: Complete Book en' edition. Kerberos saga Kerber ...

'' (1987) is a

radio drama Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine ...

prequel written by

Kazunori Itō is a Japanese anime screenwriter and artist who is well known for his work in the ''.hack'' franchise and his writing for the 1995 ''Ghost in the Shell'' movie. Itō supervised the writing for the novel, '' .hack//Another Birth'' which was writ ...

with an original soundtrack composed by

Kenji Kawai is a Japanese music composer and arranger. Known as one of the biggest names in the soundtrack world, he has worked on a wide range of mixed media productions, including anime, TV shows, films and video games. Among his credits are Toei's Kame ...

. The film would be followed by two prequels: '' StrayDog: Kerberos Panzer Cops'' (1991) and '' Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade'' (1999).

References

External links

Kerberos saga official website
(''Japanese'') * {{DEFAULTSORT:Red Spectacles, The 1987 films 1980s science fiction thriller films Japanese black-and-white films Films directed by Mamoru Oshii Films set in 1995 1980s Japanese-language films Japanese independent films Kerberos saga Japanese political thriller films Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department in fiction Films scored by Kenji Kawai 1987 independent films 1980s political thriller films Japanese science fiction thriller films 1980s Japanese films