Patlabor 1: Mobile Police

VHS, Unrated, 118 minutes, Ryko/Palm Pictures

The year is 1999 and Tokyo's Mobile Police have a new weapon in the war on crime- advanced robots called Labors are used to combat the criminals who would use the new technology for illegal means. The suicide of a mysterious man on the massive Babylon Project construction site set off a cascade of events that may signal the destruction of Tokyo. What is the connection between the suicide, the new Mobile Police AV-XO Zero Labor, and a berserk prototype tank? When Patlabor cops Noah Izumi and Azuma Shinohara investigate an unexplained wave of rogue Labors' rampaging across the city, they uncover a sinister revenge plot to infect Tokyo's eight thousand Labor population with the deadly Babel Virus. With the future of the city hanging in the balance and a typhoon poised to trigger the devastation, Noah, Azuma and their teammates must destroy the source of the virus - the giant Babylon-Project tower in Tokyo Bay in a die hard battle to the finish. The first in a highly acclaimed series, Patlabor 1 Mobile Police, is a science fiction police drama set against a tale of danger and high-tech revenge.