Review of Bunraku (2010) by Thomas D — 16 Mar 2012

BUNRAKU (2011).

Story:

Bunraku is about a lone samurai warrior (Gack't) who encounters a lone cowboy (Josh Hartnett) after they duel it out with eachother, they join forces with a happy-go-lucky bartender (Woody Harrelson). Together they all head out to ensue the demise of the most powerful man in the eastern world, the Woodcutter (Ron Perlman). It is a well woven story of strength, friendship, determination, revenge and retaliation.

SFX:

BUNRAKU actually boasts some visually impressive imagery. While a majority of the movie makes use of creative displays of animation and pop-up animation imagery to recreate the effect of a children's pop-up book, the other half of the film toys with a majestic arsenal of colors much like Sin-City and comic book-esque films from before, such as 300, The Spirit etc.

Final Thoughts:

Bunraku surprisingly worked. It did however have some very noticeable kinks. It does a very solid job of combining the elements of an anime, a western, an action film, a samurai movie,a love story, a kung-fu movie, a comedy and a childrens pop-up book, mixed with a dash of The West Side Story. However even those these elements were blended together rather well, the whole thing just kinda comes off as cheesy at times, but since Bunraku doesn't exactly take itself too seriously, its all okay...It becomes acceptable. Woody Harrelson is funny to watch as usually and his lenient bartender character works unusually well. Josh Hartnett's fighting is about the only thing that could've used a bit of work. He is super fast at first but slowly becomes apparently winded out by the finale. Maybe keeping him lighting fast in every scene would've been a bit overkill. The whole cast works well together and the soundtrack surprisingly wasn't horrible. A very colorful, imaginative cowboy/ samurai cheese-fest haiku!