Ten years in the making, now it's full (hand-drawn) steam ahead

Anime fans will be well aware of the futuristic 1988 film Akira, which brought international attention to Japanese animation for the first time. The film made director Katsuhiro Otomo a star in the animation world. But it's taken him until now to direct a follow-up.

Although Otomo has worked consistently as a producer and scriptwriter, he hasn't directed an animated feature since Akira. Why? He's spent much of the past 16 years working on his dream project, an animated H.G.Wells-style story about a powerful steam generator.

A number of production companies and US$22 million later, that dream project has finally arrived, in the form of action adventure Steamboy, which will open in Hong Kong later this year. Anime fans will probably judge the wait worthwhile - it's a rollercoaster action film which thunders along with some top-notch set pieces and some studiously researched period locations.

Set in England in the 1850s, the plot revolves around a scientific invention called a Steam Ball - a Steam Age variant of a nuclear power generator. When the Steam Ball is stolen by evil arms manufacturers, a young boy is sent to steal it back from their giant steam-powered city, the Steam Castle. Young Indiana Jones-style, the boy is helped (and then hindered) by historical figure Robert Stephenson - the inventor of the first steam locomotive - as he tries to return the ball to its rightful owners.

The green and pleasant land - and the grimy industrialised cities - of Victorian England are beautifully rendered in Otomo's animation. But the steam-driven machines and vehicles are the stars of the show. Anime is noted for its futuristic machinery, but in Steamboy, Otomo creates a world of old-fashioned technological wonders all powered by that archaic power source, steam.

'I was inspired by the designs of steam engines that were actually used in Victorian times,' Otomo says. 'Back then, they didn't really worry about how technology looked - they just designed things that would work. They had a very functional approach. I chose the most ugly and wasteful designs to act as the models for the machines in the film. We all tried hard to make them look convincing - although whether they would work in the real world is another matter!'

To research his meticulous depiction of Victorian England, Otomo and his animation team spent 10 days in Britain studying the landscapes and the cities. They travelled from London to Manchester and York, drawing pictures and taking photos. The animators even studied cloud formations, which Otomo says vary from country to country.