Review by Aaron Williams.
I’m sure that those of you reading this review have been led here by your taste for the cinematically weird and wonderful and maybe even a good old case of curiosity. When Bunraku first arrived at my doorstep I will admit I was pretty pessimistic. The cover screams ‘Sin City cash in’ and the cast list won’t exactly have cinemagoers lining up around the block.
What is Bunraku, anyway?
Banraku is a form of puppet theatre from Japan, a national tradition for hundreds of years, telling stories of good versus evil, honour and heroism. Guy Moshe’s film is a fusion of not only Japanese tradition but Western ones too. Set against this origami city – yep, you heard that right, it’s literally an origami city – we have a tale that evokes the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone laced with a little 5os film noir.
An animated prologue – I’m getting pretty sick of these things now – introduces us to a post war world where guns have been outlawed and any battles fought are now contested with the a blade or a steady fist. Our story opens in the city ruled by a man named Nicola (Yeah, that IS a girl’s name) the wood cutter, a dab hand with his trusty axe and the leader of a band of deadly killers. Enter mysterious drifter (Josh Hartnett) and young Japanese warrior Yoshi, both with their own agendas. They clash at first but soon realise that if they are to topple the Woodcutter’s rule, they are to work together.
The set up should have had your ears pricked up in interest by now – on paper this all sounds great, in execution, it sadly crumbles from the starting gates. Initially the world is hard to take your eyes from, truly a dystopian cityscape you will never have seen before. A lot of the sweeping shots under bridges and between houses look like they were made with the recent fascination in 3D technology in mind. But as soon as the live action actors set foot on this curious landscape the illusion falls apart, now seeming like a Playstation 3 game.
Sin City was an obvious influence here but deep into the film’s running time I couldn’t help but think of Dick Tracy and (shudder) Joel Schumacher’s Batman and Robin. This has that same theatrical fun house feel where nothing is real and nothing should be taken seriously at all. This fusion of imagery has been accomplished far more successfully in the recent (and extremely excellent) Scott Pilgrim Versus The World.
Sin City was a large melting pot and murder, sex, death and madness with a film noir twist – Bunraku comes across more like a violent Saturday morning cartoon. Sure, said violence is indeed impressive, the fight scenes visceral and complex, but you simply won’t care. The narrative wanders aimlessly through a series of tired and tried situations that will bore the piss from you. Sure, it’s all very colourful and pretty but how old are you? If your answer is ten years old then the visuals will keep you impressed through the frankly way over long running time.
The performances are largely unimpressive with the exception of the every dependable Ron Perlman as the villainous Nicol. This man should be given much more work than he gets – and not just as a big red monster. It’s odd how a project with such a low budget was condemned to such a low profile release. This would have some life on the big screen with the right marketing push behind it – we’ve seen much worse haven’t we?
For those of you still curious enough, Bunraku will start its DVD run from October 10th courtesy of G2 Pictures.