Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001)

Original title

カウボーイビバップ 天国の扉

Directed by

Shin'ichirō Watanabe

Genre

action film, science fiction film, science fiction anime and manga, neo-noir, space Western film

Country

Japan

Runtime

1h 56m

Rated

R

Rating

7.7 of 10 from 1,048 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A crew of bounty hunters on a spaceship chase a terrorist who plans to release a deadly virus on Mars. The film is set during the original series and follows the team as they try to stop the attack.

stylishcoolmelancholicnoirfast-pacedaction-packedphilosophicalurban

What happens

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (Japanese: カウボーイビバップ 天国の扉, Hepburn: Kaubōi Bibappu Tengoku no Tobira; lit. 'Cowboy Bebop: Heaven's Door') is a 2001 Japanese anime science fiction action film, based on the 1998 anime series Cowboy Bebop created by Sunrise and Hajime Yatate. Several staff from the original series returned to work on the film, including director Shinichirō Watanabe, writer Keiko Nobumoto, character designer and animation director Toshihiro Kawamoto and composer Yoko Kanno. The Japanese and English voice casts also reprised their roles. Set between episodes 22 and 23 of the original series, the plot centers on a mysterious terrorist planning to exterminate the human population of Mars by releasing a virus, with the bounty hunter crew of the spaceship Bebop working to capture the terrorist and prevent the attack. The film was conceived by Watanabe as an extension of his work on the television series, in which he had treated each episode as a miniature film. As not to alienate existing fans, much of the series' style was retained, with adjustments to make it accessible to a wider audience. Increased budget and production facilities enabled filming styles associated with live action films, as well as higher-quality animation than that of the series. Arabic aesthetics were used, in contrast to the series, which entailed Watanabe traveling to Morocco for research. Arabic elements also influenced Kanno's music. Cowboy Bebop: The Movie was produced by three studios: Sunrise, which had previously developed the original series, Bones, a later studio founded by former Sunrise staff, and Bandai Visual. Cowboy Bebop: The Movie was released theatrically in Japan on September 1, 2001, and in the United States on August 11, 2002. It went on to gross over $3 million worldwide, and when released on DVD, it performed highly on Japanese and American charts. The film received generally positive reviews from mainstream and anime critics, and was nominated for the Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Animated Film. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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