The Red Spectacles (1987)
February 7, 1987Release Date
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Release DateFebruary 7, 1987
Original Name紅い眼鏡
StatusReleased
Running Time1h 56m
Genres
Wiki.
The Red Spectacles (紅い眼鏡, Akai Megane) is a 1987 Japanese surrealist science fiction neo-noir film directed by Mamoru Oshii, co-written with Kazunori Ito, and starring Shigeru Chiba and Mako Hyodo. The first film in Oshii's Kerberos Saga, but the second installment overall after its radio drama companion piece While Waiting for the Red Spectacles (which aired a month prior), the film follows Kōichi Todome, a former police detective who, after fleeing Japan following a failed rebellion by his dissolved unit, returns several years later per a promise to his colleagues, only to find Tokyo completely unrecognizable and increasingly strange and surreal.
The Red Spectacles was released on February 7, 1987. It would be followed by several works intended to explain and expand the film's universe, the most notable of them being Kerberos Panzer Cop. The film was followed by two prequels—StrayDog: Kerberos Panzer Cops in 1991, and Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade in 1999—that adapted the established stories and settings from Kerberos Panzer Cop.