In a spooky, antic sequence, police detective Konakawa (voiced by Akio Ohtsuka) escapes a scary circus and various cinematic chase scenarios (referencing "Tarzan" movies, film noir, and so on) glimpsed through an elevator door. He is accompanied by a gamine, red-headed girl named Paprika (Megumi Hayashibara).

Turns out it was all a dream he had that was recorded by the DC-Mini, a new gadget still in development. Paprika is actually an avatar of psychiatrist Dr. Atsuko Chiba (also Hayashibara), who uses the DC-Mini to enter patients' dreams and treat their anxieties.

But Atsuko's lab is thrown into uproar when one of the four prototype DC-Minis goes missing and someone starts using it to invade Atsuko's colleagues' minds, planting a dream so powerful the victim falls into a permanent hypnogogic state in which he or she is still capable of walking around zombie-like and spouting nonsense.

Using the remaining DC-Minis, Atsuko can see that the invading dream. Assisted by the DC-Mini's inventor, the sumo-sized genius Tokita (Toru Furuya), Konakawa and Paprika (who in the dream world develops a mind of her own separate from her creator), Atsuko investigates a range of suspects.

As in other sci-fi pics featuring technology that can record thoughts, such as Kathryn Bigelow's "Strange Days" or David Cronenberg's "eXistenZ," the borders between reality and imagination keep getting blurred, creating a narrative Chinese box of dreams within dreams. Playful use is made of movie allusions and general cinematic imagery, building up to a reasonably nightmarish climax where, natch, Tokyo is nearly destroyed.

Like so many sci-fi anime pics, "Paprika" warns against the dangers of tampering with the natural order of things. However, with plucky Paprika herself and serious-minded Atsuko in the lead roles, there's a refreshing lack of sexist or misogynistic imagery except for one disturbing sequence near the end that may earn pic an "R"-level rating in some territories.

Seemingly well-budgeted pic looks pretty much par for the Japanese animation course, with simply drawn but expressive moving figures mixed with CGI-enhanced camera moves and richly rendered backgrounds, especially for the sequences featuring the eerie, confetti-strewn toy parade of invading dreams. Rest of the tech package is pro.
 
Camera (color), Michiya Kato; editor, Seyama Takeshi; music, Susumu Hirasawa; art director, Nobutaka Ike; character designer, animation director, Masashi Ando; sound designer (Dolby Digital, DTS), Masafumi Mima. Reviewed at Venice Film Festival (competing), Sept. 1, 2006. Running time: 91 MIN.