Project Eden is a feature-length film starring Kei and Yuri, the lead characters of Hakura Takachino's series The Dirty Pair. While never a smash hit of Dragonball Z proportions,The Dirty Pair has a loyal following among anime fans, who appreciate the lighthearted and often bizarre escapades of two good-looking but inept law enforcement agents. In Project Eden the two find themselves involved in an intergalactic game of intrigue centering around vizorium, a fictitious metal required for warp travel.
Kei and Yuri's adventures are a pre-Austin Powers tribute to the sexy secret agent style of pulp entertainment popular in the 1960s. Similar to the Bond movies, the film has a mad scientist intent on world domination through shaky science. There are amazing Bondlike gadgets, tight scrapes and cliffhanger-like action scenes. There is even a Cold War rivalry between two worlds that curiously resemble the United States and the Soviet Union. As an added bonus, instead of the Bond women, we are given instead Kei and Yuri as the lead characters. Much of The Dirty Pair's fanbase has to do, no doubt, with the pinup girl quality of Kei and Yuri.
There are some amazing animated sequences in the film, most notably the first few minutes,when the camera pans and twirls with incredible grace, including Yuri's Bubblegum Crisis-style entrance. The opening 10 minutes alone are almost enough to make me recommend the film without qualification. The battle against the mutants in the climax is also memorable. Project Eden also has a decent pop music score in both Japanese and English. Many of the jokes, however, left me with the feeling that I was missing out on something; I haven't seen any of the Dirty Pair TV series so its possible that I was missing some inside references. It's also possible that the translation was poorly done; my version of the film was produced by Streamline Pictures. Its equally possible that I am not privy to the Japanese sense of humor.
Given the scanty costumes and mildly risque dialogue between Kei and Yuri, this is probably a film best viewed by teens and older, even given that the titillation is kept in check by the mid-60s spy movie ethos. The Dirty Pair spend the middle third of the film clad only in bath towels; this is somewhat inexplicable and leaves the film wide open to charges of sexism. This may explain why the Dirty Pair's cult following in the USA is relatively small compared to that of Dragonball Z and Sailor Moon, which appeal equally to both males and females. Kei and Yuri are playing strictly for the guys in the audience.
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