Bunraku (2010)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Trailer-x 4 but not for this film
Rating
Year Of Production	2010
Running Time	119:19
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (58:15)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Guy Moshe
Studio Distributor	Icon Entertainment	Starring	Josh Hartnett Gackt Woody Harrelson Ron Perlman Kevin McKidd Demi Moore Shun Sugata
Case	?
RPI	$39.95	Music	Terence Blanchard

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

“There’s always someone more powerful than you”

     The future. After catastrophic wars have devastated the planet, all firearms have been destroyed. But this has not curbed violence or evil; criminal gangs fight for control of the cities although battles are now fought with edged weapons and clubs. In one particular town, the brutal thugs in charge are led by Nicola (Ron Perlman), also known as The Woodcutter, and his chief lieutenant and enforcer Killer No.2 (Kevin McKidd). Into the town come The Drifter (Josh Hartnett), looking for a game of cards and revenge, and Yoshi (Gackt), a warrior seeking to recover a golden medallion that had previously belonged to his family. Both The Drifter and Yoshi are looking for The Woodcutter; although initially at odds with each other, with the conciliation of The Bartender (Woody Harrelson), they join forces. The Bartender has his own reasons to bring down The Woodcutter related to the prostitute Alexandra (Demi Moore). Together the three men join with the Proletariat League of Defence to take out The Woodcutter and his gang.

     Bunraku is the form of Japanese puppet theatre that originated in Osaka in the 1600s. It is a stylised form of theatre, often dealing with themes of revenge and honour; the classic 47 Ronin (also a staple of Kabuki theatre and films) is a favourite. This 2010 film Bunraku,written and directed by Guy Moshe, is part western, part martial arts, part film noir, part graphic novel that never for a moment lets you forget that this film is staged theatre, not realistic. For a start, the backgrounds are all computer generated (as in 300, Sin City or Goeman), purposefully looking more like theatre backdrops than genuine buildings, the colour palate is extreme, with garish reds, purples, greens and blues prominent, speech bubbles and drop down captions to identify protagonists are sometimes used and the first scene of the film is set up to resemble a stage. There are also enough swirling camera moves to make Tony Scott envious.

     Another distancing device is the voice-over. The voice we hear does not belong to any of the characters; instead it is an anonymous narrator commenting upon the events, the action and the characters, somewhat like a Greek Chorus or, indeed, a Bunraku play which also has the narrative recited from off-stage. Throw in the film noir ironic tone and you start to get an idea of the mix of information, philosophy and knowing fun the narration provides. An example; in talking about revenge, the narrator comments: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth will forever make better grammatical balance than turning the other cheek”.

     Within this set up the characters are but representatives of type, made even more so by their identification by their nom de plume: The Drifter, The Woodcutter, The Bartender, Killer No.2. Yet despite the film getting straight into the action, and basically staying there for two hours, there is an interesting and surprising depth and feeling in some of the sequences dealing with the back story of Alexandra, The Bartender and The Woodcutter that comes across as quite touching while the climax between The Drifter and The Woodcutter has some good interesting dialogue and moments.

     The result is a film that looks spectacular, stylish, colourful and is wildly entertaining. The fights are frequent, but varied, with kung fu, chambara swordplay, fists and, at one point, a trapeze and trampoline on show! While most don’t show anything new, and indeed some of the performers are not martial arts practitioners and do look a bit ponderous, the fights are energetic and frenetic enough to remain interesting.

Video

     Bunraku is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, the original aspect ratio, and is 16x9 enhanced.

     This is a wonderful print with as crisp and sharp detail as one might expect of a recent film, digitally enhanced! One cannot say that colours are natural, they are anything but, with garish reds, purples, greens and blues prominent in the colour palate. Blacks are intense, shadow detail pristine. I did not notice any artefacts of any kind; given the intense colour palate, even colour bleed was not an issue.

     English subtitles for the hearing impaired are available in a clear white font. They are in American English, and seem to follow the dialogue word for word from the portion I sampled. Additional information is not overdone.

     Cartoonish speech bubbles translated the Japanese dialogue. They cannot be turned off if you happen to speak Japanese.

    The layer change occurred during a scene change at 58:15, creating a slight pause.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     The only audio choice is English Dolby Digital 5.1 at 448 Kbps.

     This is loud and enveloping. Dialogue is sometimes unclear, due to accents or actors mumbling, but this is not the fault of the sound mix. When that happens, there are always the subtitles. The surrounds are constantly in action; the rain, the clash of swords or fists, footsteps, music or the train passing by, there is always something going on. The subwoofer is also constantly in action for fists thudding into bodies, bass for the music and other effects such as fire. Yet despite all this action, the sound stage is nicely balanced, giving a good, clean surround experience.

     The original score by Terence Blanchard included as many diverse elements and influences as the film itself, east, west and most things in between, so it nicely enhanced the visuals and added to the film experience.

     Lip synchronisation was fine.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

     Trailers for The Beaver (2:02), TT3D: Closer to the Edge (1:52), Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2:09) and 13 Assassins (2:21) play on inserting the disc. They cannot be selected from the menu and must be skipped. Otherwise there was nothing.

     The Region 1 US version has as extras an audio commentary by director Guy Moshe and actor Kevin McKidd as well as a theatrical trailer (2:27). The Region 2 UK release seems to be the same as ours.

     A win to Region 1.

     Bunraku is part western, part martial arts, part film noir, part graphic novel. It features computer generated backgrounds, enough swirling camera moves to make Tony Scott envious, wonderful colours, a knowing narration and copious inventive action sequences. The result is a movie that looks spectacular, is very stylish and colourful and wildly entertaining.

     The video and audio are excellent, the extras are non-existent, missing the commentary available in Region 1.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall