Bunraku (2010)

Directed by

Guy Moshe

Genre

fantasy film, samurai cinema, action film, Spaghetti Western, martial arts film, dystopian film

Country

United States

Runtime

2h

Rated

R

Rating

5.8 of 10 from 354 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A young drifter seeks revenge in a world that mixes reality with shadow-play fantasy. The movie draws on samurai and Western film styles.

stylizedtheatricalvisually strikingpulpyover-the-topdarkly comicenergeticfantastical

What happens

Bunraku is a 2010 martial-arts action film written and directed by Guy Moshe, based on a story by Boaz Davidson. The film stars Josh Hartnett, Demi Moore, Woody Harrelson, Ron Perlman, Kevin McKidd, and Gackt and follows a young drifter in his quest for revenge. The title Bunraku is derived from a 400-year-old form of Japanese puppet theater, a style of storytelling that uses 4-foot (1.2 m)-tall puppets with highly detailed heads, each operated by several puppeteers who blend into the background wearing black robes and hoods. The classic tale is re-imagined in a world that mixes skewed reality with shadow-play fantasy. Its themes draw heavily on samurai and Western films. Bunraku premiered as an official selection of the Midnight Madness section at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival in Canada, and a limited theatrical release was slated for September 2011. The movie received negative reviews from critics, who unanimously praised the film for its visual style and ideas, but criticized its screenplay and characterization, being considered as a bad movie "worth watching for those who know what they are getting into". (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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