Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Review: Bunraku

Bunraku

I hadn't heard any hype surrounding this film. No trailers, no previews, no news bits, no stories, and yet it featured a pretty damn impressive cast of big names. It sat on my Netflix list for a few weeks, mainly because I didn't see anything that really drew me to flip it on and I have to admit I didn't even give it a second look beyond the title. "Bunraku"... hrm... might be good for a lazy weekend night, maybe. I don't know. I just don't care... meh.

And then I turned it on.

In a future world without guns, two mysterious drifters enter the domain of "The Woodcuter", a vicious warlord who runs the Eastern domain of Little Westworld. Josh Hartnett is the cowboy without a gun, Gackt is the Samurai without a sword, and they're both helped by a friendly bartender played by Woody Harrelson. Round that cast off with Ron Perlman as "Nicola the Woodcutter", Demi Moore as his prostitute, and Kevin McKid as Killer #2. The visuals are similar to the "Sin City" style, alot of CGI backgrounds with real actors doing their thing. There's also some awesome stunt work and I found myself really digging the fairly simple story. It's nothing new, really... but when it's done well, when it's done with style, you can't help but fall in love with it. This is Spaghetti Western meets Samurai Cinema by way of Sin City. So yeah, gape and gawk at all the awesome sauce and let it pour down your throat... this movie is great eye candy.

4 out of 5.

2 comments:

  1. The term Backplate is used more often in association with CGI and 3D. Backplates are 2D background images of landscapes suitable for any kind of advertising and specially for Automotive Backgrounds and CGI Backgrounds.

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  2. Thank you! Sorry I didn't read the comment until now, but I didn't even know I had any comments until today and I started reading back through several of them. Will try to keep it in mind the next time I see another movie with backplates.

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