ANGEL'S EGG 4K Review: Mamoru Oshii's Gorgeous and Distinctive Vision Comes Home

Awash in hand-drawn beauty. The spare settings, and the forward momentum, combine to enable the imagery to seep easily into the soul.

Angel's Egg (1985)
The film is now available on 4K from GKIDS Films. Visit the official site for more information and to place your orders.

Even after multiple viewings, Mamoru Oshii's Angel's Egg remains inscrutable to me. Yet that has not stopped me from watching it, over and over. I don't even think I can articulate what, exactly, it all means. I just love watching it, and surrendering to the spell it casts. (See my review below, where I try to figure it out.)

Out this week, the 4K restoration from GKIDS Films looks ravishing. Its on its own disc, along with six audio options -- three in Japanese, three in English -- which is great, since it allows the viewer to choose the audio option that sounds best on your particular home set-up.

The included Blu-ray features a "Bonus" selection on the menu, which leads to the "Bonus Features."

-- "Interview with Yoshitaka Amano" (11:07). Conducted in June 2025, the artist thinks back to the 'busiest period of his life'; these were the first anime storyboards he'd ever done. Initially he was consumed with drawing the girl, so drawing the boy required that he start over and think about the boy's character. It's fascinating to hear the artist reconstruct how he created the artwork for that character, especially. He also wonders how young ones in the modern audience will respond.

-- "Interview with the Creators of Angel's Egg" (16:46). Both Oshii and Asano introduce the restored film for its first private/public screening before a small audience in November 2025. Afterwards, they sat down for an interview, which is really a conversation between them, as they share their recollections about making the film and the tireless efforts of the animators -- sleeping under desks, almost lapsing into malnutrition -- as well as considering the film itself after 40 years.

-- "Japan Society Q&A with Yoshitaka Amano" (32:21). The artist sits for a post-screening session, with an English-speaking moderator and a translator. Good questions are asked, and good answers are given.

-- "Official U.S. Trailer," which effectively hints at the visual wonders to come.

-- Printed, richly illustrated booklet, featuring a fascinating new essay by Danielle Burgos, "Chasing Shadows: Oshii's Evolution Towards Angel's Egg."

The writer explains the historical circumstances that surrounded Oshii, his movement into animation, the projects he worked on, and a Lupin movie that was not to be, yet enabled him to work with Amano, who he then invited to collaborate with him on Angel's Egg. Originally, the film was much lighter in tone; once Oshii saw the storyboards by Amano, he realized that his film needed a strikingly different approach.

The essay is quite marvelous and contains additional insights into the film. Highly recommended.

-- Four gorgeous art cards, printed on strong paperboard, with illustrations from Asano's storyboards.

---

Originally published in November 2025, when the film's 4K restoration enjoyed a theatrical engagement.

Get out of the rain, girl! And why are you carrying an egg? By the way, what's in that egg?!

Written and directed by Mamoru Oshii, who would go on to worldwide fame for his visionary Ghost in the Shell some 10 years later, Angel's Eye is a very different kind of beast in its narrative form -- it's more experimental than narrative -- yet shares the filmmaker's philosophy on life and the relationship between humans and the natural world.

After beginning his career as a storyboard artist and then a director of the anime series Urusei Yatsura, Oshii helmed two feature films based on the series. The second, Beautiful Dreamer (1984), though a comedy, manifested characters who pushed into new territory, questioning their own reality, which laid the groundwork for Angel's Egg, which also repurposed concepts that Oshii had developed for a Lupin project that was cancelled.

Changing studios, Angel's Egg was Oshii's first film for the new company. It strayed far afield of traditional narrative structures and any sort of reality, following an unnamed young girl who wanders through a desolate land, protecting a large egg under her clothing -- but up high on her body, so we know she's not pregnant.

She spends her days, silently foraging for food and supplies. One day, she is startled by a large, imposing tank. A young man comes out of the tank, fully armed, prompting her to flee and hide. Soon after, the taciturn young man comes upon her sleeping form. When she awakens, he gently returns her egg, which went missing during her hasty flight, and admonishes her to be more careful about her precious cargo. He asks her: 'What's in the egg?'

That is the central issue of the movies. Initially, she doesn't say very much, and neither does he. Eventually, they both share wildly fantastic stories that bump up against each other.

As a creative collaboration between writer/director Oshii and artist Yoshitaka Amano, Angel's Egg is awash in hand-drawn beauty. The spare settings, and the forward momentum, combine to enable the imagery to seep easily into the soul.

Frankly, after one viewing, I don't understand what every image means. But I don't care. It's gorgeous and distinctive, and I want more. Happily, Oshii has created even more ambitious and accomplished work over the past 40 years.