This movie had a promising pedigree, a great cast and interesting if a bit obvious art direction yet I couldn't connect with anything happening on the screen. The point was obviously to mix cliches of eastern and western and present the whole melange in a unique look that could have worked in the hands of a better filmmaker or as an animated movie. I was on board for the first 5 minutes of the film. The prologue was very charming and made me curious for what was to come. Some may find the premise too ridiculous to believe but I'm perfectly fine with a fantasy setting writing its own rules. The main problem is that set design, however pleasing to the eye, does not make a movie and the movie doesn't deliver anything beyond that. There is no tension to the action scenes that lack weight and impact and I don't find any of the cast relatable or interesting. Dialogue is very artificial which is probably intentional, but it seems like the creators of bunraku were too focused on making the movie look stylish to notice that none of it means anything. What is oddly lacking in style for the most part is ironically the cinematography itself. The movie moves in very predictable and uninspired ways. Occasionally there are some shots that work as a comic book panel and/or look cool but do not necessarily work as a scene or connect to the rest of the movie. Film has a very specific language to it that is different from comics, videogames and the theatre. It is rather deceitful in many ways. You have to take your audience by the eye and guide it through your film. A picture says more than a thousand words and the pictures in Bunraku only tell me some very talented people didn't get their hard work presented in the most flattering way. Copying the aspects of other art forms and applying them to cinema as an experiment can be intriguing but you have to go all the way. If you get caught right in the middle of the road you fail. The fact that I even noticed the lacking cinematography should tell you something about how unengaged I was throughout the entire movie. If all you want to do is style over substance, fine. Not everything has to be deep, wordy and literal. Some of the most intriguing films, especially in animation, would work solely as visual experiences without dialogue of any kind. If you find language clumsy, be visceral. Hong Kong action has that down without any pretense of being art. If you do go for style only though, you really have to deliver.

Every one has their own opinions, but I to disagree with the bad reviews. This was an interesting, good pace, wonderfully styled movie. .it had action that was no too over the top, it was colorful, fun, odd, but not boring. It kept my attention, it was a good story, nothing bad to say. Woody Harrelson played his role as the layer back bar keep. The two fighters, The Man and Yoshikawa were great, they played their parts beautifully. The actor who played number two was good as the villain, he portrayed the bad as well. The story line kept me engaged. The comic book feel of the movie was visually stunning. Most of the movies today suck, but this movie shows there is still some ingenuity and imagination in Hollywood.

Depicting the history of man's taste for intraspecies slaughter, the rather nifty, silhouette-animated opening sequence sets up the events leading to the movie's post-apocalyptic, gun-controlled future setting. In these surroundings arise two warriors, each seeking out the villain of the piece for a reason of his own.This star-loaded feature seems to have everything going for it: a cast of proved pedigree (including Ron Perlman done-up like Rob Zombie); a stylised comic book setting (with the use of modern-day comic heroes as "ancient" legends); and some nifty narration. Unfortunately, I found it quite difficult to give much of a shi t about the story and characters, insipid and generic as they were. The action sequences, whilst hardly the worst I've seen, fail to make much in the way of impact, and half the lines delivered are mumbled, necessitating quite a bit of frustrating backscanning. Admittedly, Harrelson's bartending mentor and Perlman's ennui-stricken Big Bad provide a smidgen of interest, but they're no match for the aesthetically-appealing mediocrity of the film they find themselves in...and can someone tell me what the point of Demi Moore's character was? In summation, a beautifully bland beat 'em-up which took up two hours too many of this viewer's life.

I saw this movie randomly on TV, without expectations, and I just can't finish it, and that's pretty rare for me.The cast was wonderful, but the end result just don't justify it. The film was a fusion of sin city plus kill bill plus a large chunk of "I want to be different and artsy-fartsy", and I just don't like what came out of the blender. The script is plain, the art direction was too intentional, and the fight scenes are like watching a crappy cartoon.I loved sin city, I loved kill bill, but Bunraku just isn't even near the same ball park as those. It's fine when a film have a low budget, crappy script and cheesy effects, at least they don't pretend to be something else, but trying to run before you can walk, art direction wise, is just a big no no for me. To create the new, you gotta first know the old.This film might be entertaining for some who likes to see some eastern flavors in a movie, but growing up watching a good share of films from both the east and the west, the amount of cliché of both types annoys me.A film that wasted a great cast.