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Movie Review: Bunraku

Bunraku (2010)

Director: Guy Moshe

In a violent, dystopic, gun-free world two strangers arrive in a crime-ridden city looking for revenge. One is a nameless drifter, the strong, silent type who wields his fists like bullets. The other is a young samurai, concerned with honor above all. With the help of an insurgent bartender the two strangers join forces to take down a shadowy crime lord and his group of 9 deadly killers.

As you can probably tell by the description, this movie holds to every western/samurai/revenge flick cliché you can think of, but it does it with style.

The heavily stylized visuals and sound effects are the stars of this film. The movie opens up with a Japanese puppet show (bunraku) which sets up the world and gives background for the lack of guns. The movie, which was filmed entirely on a sound stage, is full of elaborate sets that look like they came straight out of a pop-up book. The visual style is quite gorgeous. The fight scenes (of which there are many) are choreographed almost like a dance. Every move is planned and graceful. This especially applies to Kevin McKidd's Killer #2 who looks like a cross between Alex DeLarge and Gene Kelly.

The cinematography provides even more visual flare. Rather than cut from one location to another, the camera races over the landscape, the city being constructed along the way as it arrives at its destination. I really enjoyed this technique, which reminded me of Moulin Rouge's camera trekking through the streets of Paris. One scene that particularly stood out for me was The Drifter infiltrating a multi-level prison. He travels from level to level, knocking out guards as he goes in one continuous tracking shot that was reminiscent of an old Donkey Kong game. I do love a good long tracking shot.

The story plays out in a very predictable way. There are no surprises or shocking twists, this is a by-the-book revenge tale.

The acting in the movie is solid. Josh Hartnett seems born to play these mysterious stranger roles - he's got the look and the voice and I even believed all his fight scenes. Japanese superstar Gackt played his samurai role well. Woody Harrelson was right at home playing a bartender and provided most of the movie's laughs. Ron Perlman has the size and intimidation factor down pat. Kevin McKidd had the most interesting role to work with and performed admirably.

The weakest part of the movie was Demi Moore's character, Alexandra, the crime lord's woman. It wasn't the acting, that was fine, but the character itself was poorly thought out and completely superfluous. She  attempts to bring some emotional depth to a couple of the male characters but it really doesn't work. She's brought in, given a couple scenes then disappears without any resolution to the plot-lines she introduced. This attempt at story-telling adds nothing and actually gets in the way of the movie. The whole character could have (and should have) been cut out. This would have had the added benefit of cutting the film's slightly bloated running time (118 minutes) down to something more reasonable.

Your enjoyment of Bunraku will depend on your expectations. If you're expecting fresh story-telling and well developed characters you will be sorely disappointed. I appreciate it for what it is: a good old-fashioned beat'em up with an exciting new visual style. What the movie lacks in depth it more than makes up for in entertainment value.

Rating:

Bunraku recently screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and will be released in North America in December 2010.