Review: ICE - 2008

ICE

Director: Makoto Kobayashi

2008

Animated

In another world, or our world but another dimension, or even another time, there are only women. The last man died 2012 and all reproducing of mankind were halted. However, experiments are being made to reproduce children in an artificial way with a substance called ICE. There are several severe side effects to the method, such as the creation of great monsters in the process and the rulers may not disclose all of the information to the people. What are becoming of the world? Is this the end?

I have not had much experience with this kind of adult animated films. Well, it's not an adult film in that sense but there are a few scenes where lesbianism is insinuated. It would be hard not to, since the entire male population is gone. Also, the movie starts with a girl in a thong and since I had no idea what this movie was about I kind of expected it to be semi pornographic. It’s not though, and you’ll have to do with a few naked breasts and they aren’t that plentiful!

I think the tagline Yesterday, Today and No Future, captures the true spirit of the movie perfectly but I did not realize it until I finished watching it. The story is told in three parts – with a prolog and an epilog but don’t jump to conclusions, there’s not one episode for each time segment. Instead the story is told by telling the background first, then the meaning of it all and finally the bottom line. I thought it was very confusing and I had a hard time following it at times. There’s not a very obvious storyline and several plots are weaved together. There’s fantasy, war, treason, science fiction, monsters and an evil queen – or is she?

All evil are manmade, and I really mean man made. The women who survived the male population cannot resort to the kind of violence that the males did before they perished, without being cursed. Guns are evil but swords are not! I can’t really figure this out but there may be some Japanese cultural differences that make sense. But even if all things are not a clash of the cultures; from a western point of view it’s hard to comprehend the story. With that I mean that Asian films in general are more difficult to comprehend than western flicks, at least they are for me. They tend to have more depth I think. That is at least true for me when it comes to Japanese movies, as Japan has a traditional movie industry not influences so much by Hollywood.

This is a picture where the whole is actually more potent than the parts. The fact is usually the opposite but here the different stories make a great conclusion without that the parts are that entertaining. I had a difficult time focusing at times but when the movie ends there’s a lot to think about. The Past, The Present and No Future becomes the real riddle to solve and it’s not that easy to do! There you have the real strength of the movie and it’s something I didn’t expect from an animated movie. There’s a serious and important message to be found!

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