Review: Bunraku

Every so often a film comes along and you just know the makers went "Genre. Pft! I don't need to adhere to your pathetic genre conventions!" Bunraku (Guy Moshe, 2010) is one such film.

Ignore the generic looking poster, this film is anything but...

I was all ready to dislike this film, it sounded like a badly put together action film, made on the cheap but I was wrong on every count. Part Western, part Jidai Geki, Bunraku takes concepts and archetypes from both and mashes them together in a world taking visual cues from pop up books and German expressionism. It should be a mess, it shouldn't work but it does.

The title comes from a 400 year old type of puppet theatre from Japan and said puppetry forms the opening credits with narration by none other than Faith No More's Mike Patton (?!) It is a gorgeous piece of work and from then on the visuals only get more stunning as the film progresses. The story itself is simple: A gunslinger and a samurai, under the guidance of a grizzled bartender, team up to fight a warlord and his nine assassins in a world where guns are outlawed. Slightly barmy but fairly straight forward. It's the way the story is shown that makes this film enjoyable. The scenery and the costumes are stunning but the real visual treat is the balletic fight scenes which get more and more impressive as you keep watching. Bunraku could quite possible be my new favourite film and though Moshe has only made two films to date, I am eager to see how his career moves on.