is a 1998 Japanese film directed by

Takashi Miike is a Japanese film director, film producer and screenwriter. He has directed over one hundred theatrical, video, and television productions since his debut in 1991. His films run through a variety of different genres, and range from violent a ...

. The film features the Japanese musical groups

Speed In everyday use and in kinematics, the speed (commonly referred to as ''v'') of an object is the magnitude of the change of its position over time or the magnitude of the change of its position per unit of time; it is thus a scalar quantity ...

and Da Pump.

Plot

High school students Mainosuke "Mai" Hitomi and Yuu kiss for the first time. Later that same day Mai is hit by a truck and killed. Her scientist father, Toshihiko Hitomi, uses a scan of her memories created before her death to construct an AI copy of her, named "Ai". Soccer, the CEO of the American tech company Digital Ware, wishes to awaken his own AI and sends an agent to shoot Toshihiko and steal his software, but Toshihiko sends Ai through the modem to safety before dying. Ai finds Yuu through a school computer terminal nicknamed "Icon" that has been enhanced by Satoshi Takanaka, Mai's genius half-brother with a terminal brain disease. Yuu transfers Ai to his laptop, through which she interacts with him and Mai's old friends, including Rika, who is jealous of Yuu's love for Ai. Soccer sends Satoshi and others to chase down Yuu and capture Ai.

Cast

Hiroko Shimabukuro , best known mononymously as Hiro, is a Japanese singer. She debuted as a member of the popular girl group Speed in 1996. In 1998, Hiro released her first solo song, "Mitsumete Itai", as a B-side to Speed's single "All My True Love". She made ...

as Mai Hitomi & Ai *

Eriko Imai is a Japanese pop singer, actress and politician. She made her debut in the early 1990s as part of the group Speed, which disbanded in March 2000. Eriko began her work away from Speed during 1998, performing "Tsumetaku Shinai de", under the st ...

as Yôko * Takako Uehara as Rika *

Hitoe Arakaki is the oldest member of the Japanese pop group Speed, which disbanded in 2000 and reformed in 2009. She was born in Okinawa is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a populati ...

as Nao * Kenji Harada as Yuu *

Ryô Karato Ryo may refer to: * Ryō, a gold currency unit in pre-Meiji Japan Shakkanhō system * Ryō (actress) (born 1973), Japanese model, actress, and singer * Ryō (given name), a unisex Japanese given name * Ryo, Georgia, an unincorporated community in G ...

as Satoshi Takanaka * Christopher Doyle as Sakkaa/Soccer *

Tomorowo Taguchi is a Japanese actor, film director and musician. After leaving Dokkyo University without graduating, he started to earn his living as an illustrator, writer and pornographic cartoonist. He joined a theatre called Hakken no Kai in 1978 and he m ...

as Gôda *

Issa Hentona is a Japanese boy band made up of lead vocalist, Issa Hentona and MCs Ken Okumoto, Yukinari Tamaki and Shinobu Miyara. The band formed as students at Okinawa Actors School in 1996. They made their debut on the Avex Trax subsidiary avex tune un ...

as Tooru * Shinobu Miyara as Hiroyuki *

Yukinari Tamaki , also known as Fujiwara no Kōzei, was a Japanese calligrapher (''shodoka'') during the Heian period. He was memorialized for his prowess in his chosen art by being remembered as one of the outstanding Three Brush Traces ( Sanseki 三跡), alo ...

as Kazuma * Ken Okumoto as Daiki * Anna Ide as Mai as a child *

Akihiro Yoshikawa Akihiro (written: , , , , , , , , 明広, , , , , , , , , , , or ) is a masculine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: *, Japanese footballer *, Japanese volleyball player *, Japanese mixed martial artist *Akihiro Higuchi, U ...

as Yuu as a child * Kazuki Kitamura as Sada * Michelle Gazepis as Sakkaa's/Soccer's secretary * Hiromi Suzuki as Mai's mother *

Naoto Takenaka is a Japanese actor, comedian, singer, and director from Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, affiliated with From First Production. He is married to idol singer and actress Midori Kinouchi. He is also known as the voice of Samuel L. Jac ...

as Kurosawa *

Tsunehiko Watase (July 28, 1944 – March 14, 2017) was a Japanese actor known for portraying Rintaro Kano in ''Keishicho Sosa Ikka 9 Gakari'' ("Homicide Team 9"). He won the award for best supporting actor at the 2nd Japan Academy Prize for '' The Incident'' an ...

as Toshihiko Hitomi/Mai's father/Ai's creator

Release

''Andromedia'' was distributed theatrically in Japan by

Shochiku () is a Japanese film and kabuki production and distribution company. It also produces and distributes anime films, in particular those produced by Bandai Namco Filmworks (which has a long-time partnership—the company released most, if not ...

on July 11, 1998. The film was released on DVD and VHS in Japan by

Toy's Factory is a Japanese record label founded in the late 1980s as a subsidiary of the entertainment company VAP, based in Japan. On May 30, 1990, it was established as an independent company. Toy's Factory, as of the first half of 2012, is the four ...

and in the United States by

Pathfinder Pictures Pathfinder may refer to: Businesses * Pathfinder Energy Services, a division of Smith International * Pathfinder Press, a publisher of socialist literature Computing and information science * Path Finder, a Macintosh file browser * Pathfinder ...

Reception

Tom Mes, author of ''Agitator: The Cinema of Takashi Miike'', described ''Andromedia'' as the "most unabashedly commercial film" Miike had made at this point in his career.

Notes

References

External links

* * 1990s science fiction action films Films directed by Takashi Miike Films about artificial intelligence Films about consciousness transfer Films set in Detroit Films set in Kamakura Films set in Toronto 1990s Japanese-language films Japanese high school films Japanese science fiction action films 1990s English-language films 1990s Japanese films {{1990s-sf-film-stub