In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

This was a GREAT movie! I loved every minute of it. Wonderful story telling, unique and great visuals, cool characters. I was really into it. I enjoyed the fight scenes and the humor involved. I rate it 10 stars. I wish there were more good movies like this out there

Bunraku demonstrates exactly what the term 'interesting failure' looks like on screen. It's got some wild elements that never really pull together into a cohesive whole which one can call a successful package, but oh does it ever try. It's basically Yojimbo in a colorful, oddly static world where assassins don't use guns and everyone dresses in samurai costumes designed by Abba. It succeeds with the visual element, drawing inspiration from stylistic tropes like Sin City and the titular form of Japanese puppet theatre bunraku. I know that all sounds like ingredients for an instant classic, and yeah it should be. However, things don't always work out and we are left instead with a lively piece that can't overcome it's laggy, strange pace and ultimately uninvolving story. Josh Hartnett is solid as The Drifter, a lone warrior who comes to town looking for revenge, bringing along his companion Yoshi (Japanese pop idol Gackt). The town is a technicolor zen garden and bursting with enthusiastic production design, ruled over by a ruthless and reclusive crime boss named Nicola (Ron Perlman under a bushy nest of snowy dreadlocks). Many a battle ensues, all rather staccato and without the ruckus of gunfire. I was reminded heavily of the final fight scene between Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu in Tarantino's Kill Bill. It's neat that they payed homage here, if a little overly obvious and without added originality. Drifter is assisted by a pacifist bartender (Woody Harrelson, barely registering on the acting seismic meter), and Alexandra (Demi Moore) Nicola's concubine. This might have been something special had a little more effort been put into greasing up the tracks of the plot with some life, instead of mainly focusing on making action scenes that have wandered right out of a painting. They are impressive for what they are, though, and I suppose worth a watch. Just don't look beneath the brushstrokes for a heartbeat or brainwaves.

BUNRAKU is one of those hyper-fantasy action flicks that looks like a comic book, a la 300 and SIN CITY. The story takes place in some colourful fantasy world where everyone seems to be an expert in the martial arts and has some legend or other connected to them. As the tale progresses the story lines gradually coalesce with the heroes teaming up to battle the big bads at the climax.According to the director, his intent was to make a film that looks and feels like SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, with the twist that the dances are replaced by fights. To this end, BUNRAKU is a success. There's a lot of action here, and while none of the fighters are amazing, the choreography is crisp and fluid. The fights look good, at the very least. They reminded me of the famous tea house battle in KILL BILL: VOLUME 1.The producers have also assembled a decent cast for this one, and I appreciate the casting of a Japanese guy in the lead role (even though he's a singer, Gackt looks the part all right). I'm no fan of Josh Hartnett but he's at the very least passable, while Woody Harrelsen brings plenty of charm as the third person in the story. Thankfully Demi Moore's screen time is kept to a minimum, but Ron Perlman and Kevin McKidd make a good tag team as the bad guys. BUNRAKU isn't a perfect film - it's not something I would be tempted to watch again - but at least it looks and feels fresh and invigorating, which is more than can be said for most modern American productions.

This is one of those movie that you wonder how you missed when it came out in theatres. I don't ever remember seeing an ad on TV or online about this movie. I'm sure they were there but I didn't find out about this movie until I saw it recommended to me on IMDb. I went to check it out and set an evening aside to enjoy this film.That is where the problems started to happen. The film was fast paced and at some points I would miss what they said. So with the wonders of technology I rewound the first time to find out what someone said. Then a few minutes later I had to rewind again because I couldn't understand what someone said. I thought, "OK, that's OK I'll just turn on the closed-captions." Then I discover, there were no closed-captions available on the DVD. I was shocked. I couldn't believe that. So what was suppose to be a great movie experience with all the colors and sometimes over choreographed fight scenes, became a nightmare of just trying to figure out what everyone was saying. I'm not an old guy, a guy in college and I don't have any hearing problems.The movie took longer to watch just because of that whole issue of having to rewind to find out what they would say. Most of the times, just to create effect in the movie, the actors would talk under their breathe. Every time that would happen I would have to rewind, it was so hard to understand what they were saying.As for the visual design, they were wonderful watching. It was almost like a Kill-Bill style of colors mixed with Sin City look. It was really interesting to watch all the paper design of the cities and how they all worked together. In the beginning the fight scenes looked like they were going to be great but then when I saw the first fake deaths in a fight scene I knew this was not going to be at the level of quality I had expected. If you are wondering what I'm referring to, watch the first scene where Josh's character kills three guys at the same time in the "Town" location and you notice the three guys just fall down.There were times I had to rewind to catch certain mistakes because they were so obvious. Now having worked in the film industry making films, I can understand how hard it is to due with continuity issues but I also realize on a film like this, because of lighting and set-ups, continuity can become a nightmare, but at the same time it's important for the script supervisor and anyone else watching the monitor to keep an eye out for those, especially with the budget they had.If you plan to watch this movie, just make sure you have an excellent stereo system and a DVD with closed-captions. It's sad to know that those who are deaf will not be able to enjoy this visually appealing film.