Review of Bunraku (2010) by Erno K — 03 Dec 2011

It's not everyday you see something innovative or different in movies. Sadly, what could have been beyond awesome is merely pretty good.

Some critical mistakes hinder this film. It is horribly miscast for a start. The parts I didn't like: Josh Hartnett as the hero (lol), Demi Moore as the token woman, Ron Perlman as the main villain. Simply unbelievable and poor choices for these roles.

But I fucking loved Kevin McKidd. In the baddest and/or coolest mofos in movie history sweepstakes, his character would rank quite high. He should have been the lead nemesis. And the hero. Somehow he should have played both and then just kill himself in the end for being too awesome. The Japanese fellow wasn't bad either, I kinda liked his Aikido-ish style of throwing the henchmen around.

I suppose I have to talk about the visual style, which is pretty wacky. They try to make it look like we are watching a pop-up book of some kind. The colors are strong and amplified, and even simple structures like walls look like they are made of paper. Weird choice but it didn't wow me, nor did it annoy me. Just something that stood out. Other movies have done similar stuff in the past, which lessened the impact for me.

With movies like this it all comes down to the fights with me. So let us assess them. They start with a really cool one, where McKidd's Number 2 ("His name...Number 2." Had to do it.) kicks all kinds of ass. It is a damn shame that the best fight is the very first one. He makes it look effortless too, which is something I appreciate very much.

There is a huge anticlimax of a fight near the middle, where the two good guys face off with two of the killers. It has an enormous build-up but turns out to be dog shit. They jump on trampolines and crap, and the samurai dude wins against a guy that has way better weapons, which I always hate. You can not win against a dude with two swords (who can use them) with a heavy polearm pipe-thingy that you just found on the ground. Try it. They won't hit your stick repeatedly in real life when they could just use the speed advantage and slash the fuck out of you while you were still trying to parry the first blow. Basic movie shit, but that won't fly with me.

But the real fuck you to me came with the end duels. Both of them. There is absolutely nothing more I hate more than the sort of come-from-near-death victories I saw here, where the good guy takes punishment that could kill eight regular dudes and is all defeated and crippled... but then gets a stupid fucking second wind or something and simply stabs the other guy in the gut (who suddenly can't fight for shit anymore). Like what the fuck!? Why do you always do that? The bad guys always turn their back and enjoy the situation way too much... and then someone stabs them in the gut. Fuck. I just want the hero to beat the shit out of the villain in a fair fight. But no, they always have to make it a thing. For this alone, I subtracted half a star from the rating.

There are some other stupid things as well, like the awesome logic of persuading a friend to go along with the police, but then immediately recruit the other friend to bust him out of the jail, when the first guy could have just beat up the four policemen and not go to jail at all. There is also one insanely redundant car chase, which feels completely out of place in the movie.

Like I said, could have been great, as I loved some of the more clever things, but bad decisions ruin it for me in the end.