Appleseed director Aramaki Shinji returns to helm this sequel, made with the involvement of Hong Kong director John Woo, who served as producer on the project. Woo's impact is felt in the feature's pared down plot and thrilling action sequences, a departure from the previous exposition-heavy cyberpunk storylines of the original Appleseed and its traditionally-animated eighties precursor. The state-of-the-art computer-animated imagery bring the futuristic world of Olympus to stunning life, with the man-machine love story injecting surprising emotion into a typically cerebral anime genre. The film was released in October 2007 in, before receiving an American premiere at the Jules Verne Adventures Film Festival in Los Angeles in December 2007.

The Premium Edition of Ex Machina - Appleseed Saga includes the feature-length film with English Subtitles plus trailers, TV spots, and audio commentary from the filmmakers. In addition, the set includes 3 extra discs with the 105-minute US theatrical cut of the film, behind-the-scenes documentaries, premiere footage, design galleries, profiles of the cast and crew, and an HD-DVD containing the entire feature film in High Definition! A pair of collectible booklets, 6 postcards, and a set of ES.W.A.T. stickers round out this deluxe package.