Mamoru Oshii is one of the giants of Japanese animation, particularly the strain that translated the literary science fiction cyberpunk movement to the screen. From the giant robot action of the Patlabor films to the alternate history political thriller Jin-Roh (1999) and most especially the international mega hit Kôkaku kidôtai/Ghost in the Shell (1995) and its many sequels and spin-offs. As early as 1987, he’d been dabbling with live action with Akai Megane/The Red Spectacles, another science fiction epic. Two more live-action films followed (Keruberosu: Jigoku no Banken/StrayDog: Kerberos Panzer Cops (1991) and Tōkingu Heddo/Talking Head (1992)) followed before he made one of his most ambitious films to date, Avalon.

Set in the near future, it follows the fortunes of Ash (Małgorzata Foremniak), a highly skilled player of the virtual reality game Avalon in which players undertake missions that are hazardous (some players are left brain dead by their experiences in the virtual world) but which can be highly profitable financially. Ash now only plays solo after her party Team Wizard was disbanded and becomes involved in the hunt for a mysterious NPC (non-plater character) who appears as a young girl (Zuzanna Kasz) known (“they call her the Ghost”). She’s supposed to be the gateway into a much-rumoured level, Special A, whose rewards are astronomical but whose dangers are potentially deadly. Previous attempts to locate Ghost have left players in comas, the “Unreturned”. In the game, she searches for the “Nine Sisters”, the creators of Avalon but soon finds it hard to tell the real world from Avalon…

Avalon is an ambitious film that takes ideas from William Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy and bits and pieces from The Matrix (1999) and mashes them altogether into a film full of nice ideas that doesn’t quite all hold together. It’s not as densely plotted as a lot of Oshii’s best work (in fact it’s quite thin narratively), it’s hard to warm to the characters (either the real or the virtual) and the plotting is both slow and at times oblique at best, but you’re never that far from another stunning visual or a display of “how are they doing that” visual pyrotechnics. It’s an unusual looking film – far from the usual neon glow we expect from films about computer games and virtual reality, Avalon is drenched in a highly distinctive and unexpected tea-stained sepia look.

Oshii’s love for Polish cinema is clear throughout. Avalon was a Japanese-Polish co-production and featured a largely Polish cast. “I have always loved Polish cinema,” Oshii told  Brice Pedroletti in 2001, “and I wished to return to its universe and make it live in a film of my own.” But unfortunately, the promised clash of cultures never really amounts to very much – one hoped that it would inhabit a hinterland between the two but it fails to capture anything of real interest from either culture. Oshii has expressed a desire to revisit Poland for another film but as of spring 2023, he hasn’t managed it.

Oshii’s other obsessions and themes were all present and correct. Ash has a Bassett hound (of course she does – what kind of Oshii film would it be without one?) and his distrust of technology and the impact it’s having on us is more prominent than ever. It raises the concerns of many at the time and indeed since that players of increasingly realistic and immersive computer games might somehow lose themselves in their virtual worlds. As Avalon progresses, the distinction between the real and the virtual blurs dramatically (one striking sequence has Ash returning to what looks like her real world only to find people and animals inexplicably frozen in time). As in David Cronenberg’s similarly reality-bending Videodrome ()), there’s a moment where the protagonist puts of a virtual reality helmet and from that point on nothing can be relied on to be real.

While the story baffled some and left others feeling dissatisfied, there’s little to complain about when it comes to its visuals. It’s bursting with religious symbolism (and Arthurian references to for those paying attention), the in-games effects might look dated today but were fresh and innovative in 2001, and there are so many marvellous individual sequences that remain indelible: a hospital ward full of brain dead victims of Avalon, those who tried to get into Special A and paid the price; an attack helicopter that seems to have a life and certainly a presence all of its own; and the appropriately ghostly Avalon NPC who keeps appearing to Ash in what we think is the real world… but is it?

Avalon was a popular film in 2001 – at least when audiences could see it; it barely had a release in the United States – and its ambitions are to be admired and applauded. It doesn’t quite work as well as one would have liked but it’s still an impressive and innovative film which should appeal to cyberpunk fans with a tolerance for a leisurely pace and thinly drawn characters. Performances are generally good enough to get you over the latter (Foremniak went on to become a judge on the Polish equivalent of America/Britain’s Got Talent) and if all else fails you can drink in the gorgeous imagery and, even today, wonder how they did some of it.

Oshii continued making both anime and live action films and among the latter there was 2009’s Assault Girls which isn’t a direct sequel, but it is set in the same fictional world, and Avalon the game plays a central part in the drama. He has so far not returned to the world he created in 2001 which feels like a pity as it’s one that one suspects still has much to offer.