Paprika (2006)
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Paprika is a Japanese psychological thriller movie that came out in 2006 in the language of Japanese.
How I watched: Internet Archive
For the short of it: Paprika is about a device that can view and record dreams but the device gets stolen and used for nefarious purposes.
The long of it? Get ready, bros.
Preface to say I saw this movie a little after it came out and it was an instant favorite of mine and still is to this day. Back in my pirating days it was easily accessible and with a few simple clicks of a mouse I successfully downloaded it...to my old laptop that took an eternal shit so I cannot get it back. Wah.
You also may think that this has similarities to Inception and you are right. I was a bitter bitch and since I fell in love with Paprika first and it obviously predated the movie by 4 years, I refused to watch Inception. Plus it really dug the wound deeper when people would think of Inception (which by some stupid reason is more popular than the anime) when it comes to talking about dreams. Fuck no. Paprika was first, mothafucka. Let's just get into the movie. People can like both movies anyway, right?
So this movie centers around Doctor Atsuko Chiba who proctors the DC mini, a device that can be used to enter dreams. The client it is being used on is Detective Konakawa who is plagued with recurring nightmares due to working on a current case. Chiba has an alter ego that enters his dreams and what Detective sees as the red headed bubbly Paprika. Together, she can replay at least a portion of the nightmares that plague him. Definitely not something that can be solved in one session though so he is left with a card along with a website should he need to come back.
All sounds fine and dandy huh? To be able to use this technology for help people deal with their lives and shit. Well the thing about the DC mini is that it is simply a prototype with very limited restrictions at least it's in good hands. Right? Uhhh right?
It was in fact not right.
DC mini ends up getting STOLEN! Bad shit happens. It is now being used to target various people connected to Chiba and Tokita including the attempted killing of the chief of the department when his dreams are being acted out in reality and he yeets himself off the 2nd floor. He didn't die though but he did get seriously hurt.
So it is mainly Chiba and Tokita, who is the inventor of the DC mini are on a race against time to retrieve it before more people die.
It's a hella freaky movie and has a lot of horrifying imagery even for an anime. It's far from the scariest anime I have ever seen but it is absolutely a great movie with a great plot, great progression. Great everything. I feel like no amount of words I type will ever do it justice.
The reason why I always had such a soft spot for Paprika and why I love as much as I still do today over 15 years later is because I found out about this movie not long after I started my journey into being interested in dreams and shit. I was in high school around the time and started my first handwritten dream journal. I really do miss that time in my life because I was able to recollect multiple dreams in the same night and have a consistent back to back entries of dream recollection.
Weird because during that time of my life I was a very suicidal young girl and dreams was my way to escape real world sorrows. A lot of my entries were black and white dreams which is pretty obvious on the interpretation what that meant. I was even able to lucid dream (controlling the environment around you). Which was a blessing and a curse to me.
I would be able to not only fly but to control what I flew into. I could either be flying high above the earth looking at the beautiful landscapes or even burst myself into outer space and visit other planets.
I used to have the worst nightmares (My Dream Journal for the interested) but one of the perks of it is where I become lucid and use that knowledge to wake up from said nightmare...which 9 times out of 10 it works.
Holy shit I was totally digressing here aren't I? This is becoming a dramatic blog post instead of a movie post, huh? Kill me now. Anyway, this played a huge part in why I love Paprika as much as I do, it was all about the fantastical technology for dreams and the dreary consequences when using the DC mini to go on a terrorist killing spree. Freaky as fuck.
It's totally okay to like Inception and Paprika just don't get it twisted and saying Paprika was inspired by Inception because it is factually wrong. Also the fact Paprika was based on a 1993 novel.
GOOD NEWS!! After a long awaited over 10 years in development hell a LIVE ACTION series is finally coming to a streaming service near YOU! Only sucky part is that it will be on Amazon Prime Video. It was announced in 2022 so fingers crossed to a very fruitful wrap up and maybe we will see a trailer before the end of the year. Without a doubt, it will absolutely be covered in my HorrortizedTV blog. That is, if it's a series and not a movie. Potential cast?
That being said, what is my verdict?
