Bunraku (2010)

Perfect cast and a good story

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

This is by no means a masterpiece, but it's a cool fantasy/action flick with beautiful and cool scenery, interesting characters and cool fight scenes! It has flaws, but if you go in with an open mind and don't expect too much you shall be entertained!

Bunraku demonstrates exactly what the term 'interesting failure' looks like on screen. It's got some wild elements that never really pull together into a cohesive whole which one can call a successful package, but oh does it ever try. It's basically Yojimbo in a colorful, oddly static world where assassins don't use guns and everyone dresses in samurai costumes designed by Abba. It succeeds with the visual element, drawing inspiration from stylistic tropes like Sin City and the titular form of Japanese puppet theatre bunraku. I know that all sounds like ingredients for an instant classic, and yeah it should be. However, things don't always work out and we are left instead with a lively piece that can't overcome it's laggy, strange pace and ultimately uninvolving story. Josh Hartnett is solid as The Drifter, a lone warrior who comes to town looking for revenge, bringing along his companion Yoshi (Japanese pop idol Gackt). The town is a technicolor zen garden and bursting with enthusiastic production design, ruled over by a ruthless and reclusive crime boss named Nicola (Ron Perlman under a bushy nest of snowy dreadlocks). Many a battle ensues, all rather staccato and without the ruckus of gunfire. I was reminded heavily of the final fight scene between Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu in Tarantino's Kill Bill. It's neat that they payed homage here, if a little overly obvious and without added originality. Drifter is assisted by a pacifist bartender (Woody Harrelson, barely registering on the acting seismic meter), and Alexandra (Demi Moore) Nicola's concubine. This might have been something special had a little more effort been put into greasing up the tracks of the plot with some life, instead of mainly focusing on making action scenes that have wandered right out of a painting. They are impressive for what they are, though, and I suppose worth a watch. Just don't look beneath the brushstrokes for a heartbeat or brainwaves.

I imagine when Quentin Tarantino saw this film, he went mad with envy. It's just up his alley, only without so much obnoxious dialogue and a lot more style. In fact, style is the major asset of this movie as the story itself is just a prop, a carefully placed cliché put there only to emphasize the amount of effort put in the visual styling of the film.Bunraku is a Japanese form of theatre that involves puppets, instrumental music and singers. The film is structured like that, with over the top characters like puppets, a narrator in place of singers (thank God!) and a melange of instrumental Japanese music and American rock and roll.But Bunraku is not perfect. One of the major points I had was with the sound, people kept whispering for dramatic effect right before engines and sword fighting brought on a deluge of volume. It's difficult to watch this without either accepting loud noises or not hearing everything that is being said. Another disappointment, I guess, was the ending, which wasn't really thought through. The cliché was done, exposed, brought all it needed to do; at the end, the writer should have destroyed it with an original and creative finale. They did not do that.Bottom line: If you liked Sin City or Tarantino films, you are going to like this one, as well. It has a stellar cast: Ron Perlman, Josh Hartnett, Woody Harrelson, Demi Moore, Kevin McKidd (doing his best to impersonate Christopher Eccleston, I guess?). Did I mention Ron Perlman? They all seemed to have fun doing the film, so why not have fun watching it?

This is a video game style movie with a mix of cartoonish anime style going for it and a bit of Tarantino style narration. But it just wasn't as entertaining as I hoped it would be. If it was more crazy and had a bit more sex appeal it might have been better. I usually don't say that kinda stuff for films but for a movie like this it might have been better. The background and costume design seems like something off of "Dick Tracy" and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". So yeah I wouldn't be surprised if the makers of this movie was influenced by anime like "Ninja Scroll" or "Afro Samurai" and video games like "No More Heroes". So the plot is basically this, the setting takes place where firearms are not allowed anymore. And gangs roam the streets but the top gang is the one that runs the whole show. But any other gangs can challenge the top gang. And than there comes the lone wolf cowboy dude with no guns who is played by Josh Hartnett and a swordless samurai named Yoshi(Gackt)that is trying to take down the top gang and defeat the leader of that gang. And has to fight the top gang and the top 10 killer of that gang ranked 1 through 10, 1 being the toughest and 10 being the weakest. And that is basically the whole story and than you have 2 side characters, one being the bartender played by Woody Harrelson and a courtesan played by Demi Moore who has almost no relevance to the story. Gackt got my attention when this movie was advertised, not because I am fond of him as a actor or like his music but I find it cool when a Asian actor plays a prominent role in Hollywood movies. And he was actually pretty good in this movie with the role he was given. The thing is watching this movie was like watching a play where the action isn't as cool as I thought it would be. This movie sort of reminded me of "The Warrior's Way" except I though "The Warrior's way" is a bit better. Overall this isn't a terrible movie and is actually entertaining to a degree. 2 Key scenes that stand out is when The Drifter goes to save Yoshi while beating up bad guys in a one shot deal in a complete old school video game style with old school video game sound effects. And the car chase scene that is very short but kinda cool to watch.5.8/10