BY AKIKO NAKAGAWA

"Have you ever had a dream that you were sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world? " This intriguing idea lead me to the theater to see "The Matrix." At first it is confusing and then you become absorbed in it.

" The Matrix" was acclaimed in many articles saying, "It's a revolutionary movie" or, "A marvelous picture." It is really a great masterpiece in which the power of the imaginations of many peaple were utilized, and it was far beyond the notion we have of movies. The Wachowski brothers, who directed this film, advanced their status to the top of Hollywood in one stroke. In addition, to my surprise, it was their second film. "We wanted to have our personal hobbies reflected in this film. But first of all, we wanted to create an action movie which had a visual that no audience had ever seen on a screen. But every studio had no idea what we wanted to do." So their idea was rejected by every studio. It took as long as five years to realize "The Matrix."

Kung Fu, which is one of the directors' personal hobby, plays an important role in this film. We have a kind of stereotype: when we talk about an action movie, we are likely to associate it with guns. However, they use Kung Fu in the film instead. And we can appreciate a sense of thrill and excitement that we never have in any movie without guns. Especially in the Kung Fu fight scene between Keanu Reeves, who plays Neo, and Laurence Fishburne, who plays Morpheus, my heart lept. It was the most impressive scene that I'd ever seen. The full impact of their kicks could throw a person 10 meters easily. Their punches were too speedy to see and they displayed continuous back turns to avoid the punches. For these action scenes, actors and actresses took special Kung Fu training and wire-stunt work for 4 months from Hong Kong stunt specialists before film making began. They did every stunt in this film without stunt men.

We can appreciate a lot of rousing scenes besides this, so it is never boring. Recently, Computer Graphics have developed more and a lot of nonrealistic scenes have been created. When we see such scenes, we won't be excited by it any more, but this film took advantage of it successfully. You should watch it as if you were in a dream world. Because "The Matrix" is our imaginary reality world. Keanu Reeves said the reason he decided to appear in this movie was because, "This is a movie which I really want to watch."

There are difficult points, like philosophy, that we can hardly understand. But in this film the most important thing we have to do is to imagine sports players who do image training before a game. Neo said that life must be created by oneself. If "The Matrix" were our imaginary world, we would have to create the future with our own power. And when the imagination is combined from not only the director but the staff, cast and you, "The Matrix" will appear before you. Can you see it?