A new movie featuring a vast string of different cultures will hit the big screen soon. Cultures collide in the movie Bunraku, where a mysterious drifter (Josh Hartnett) and a young Japanese warrior (Gackt) arrive in a town terrorized by criminals. Each guided by the wisdom of The Bartender (Woody Harrelson), they join forces to bring down the corrupt reign of Nicola (Ron Perlman) and his lady Alexandra (Demi Moore).
According to the synopsis at IMBD.com the movie will have a, “fresh visual context, set in a unique world that mixes skewed reality with shadow-play fantasy, a place where even the landscape can betray you…the world of ‘Bunraku’ is past and present, fantasy and reality, Samurai and Western all combined. Like ‘Sin City’ and ‘300’, it gives classic conflict a whole new graphically supercharged dynamic.”
The film resonates through a wide range of cultures and showcases a mind-blowing array of martial arts disciplines. The film’s star, Josh Hartnett, described the world of “Bunraku” to MTV News as “a puppetry-meets-Origami look.”
Hartnett said, “All the cast isn’t set yet, but it’s going to be a lot of really interesting actors, in this weird kind of papier-mâché world.”
It’s been described as a trippy film which Hartnett compared to Alfred Hitchcock’s, “Rope.” Hartnett continued,”I don’t even know how to explain it…It’s odd; it’s out there. I’ve been trying to do as much artistic fare as I can and things that are compelling to watch as well… My character is called ‘The Drifter,’ and he comes into this world that doesn’t look like anything like you’ve ever seen before. It’s in the vein of ‘Sin City’ or something like that, where the world doesn’t look like reality at all.”
Everything was filmed in Romania, and part of the art direction will be done by Brazilian Guilherme Marcondes. He will be animating the opening sequence of Bunraku. He’s known for brilliantly blending CGI, photography, puppetry, animation and illustration and it can be seen in his short films online.
Since the movie “Watchmen” is a hot topic at the moment here is a short summary of Alex McDowell, co-producer of Bunraku and the man behind the extraordinary visuals that will be in the movie.
Bunraku is McDowell’s debut move from production design to actual movie production. But McDowell has a list of movies under his belt, the movies are titles including “The Crow”, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”, Spielberg’s “The Terminal”, Tim Burton’s “Corpse Bride” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, “Minority Report”, and “Watchmen.”
His piece to the multicultural puzzle is his British background. According to his profile, he describes himself as “British” even though he resides in Los Angeles. He trained as an artist at a London art college in the 1970s and spent his time promoting the punk-rock movement. His film-media life started 1980s making music videos with rock groups such as the Sex Pistols, so working with musicians like Bunraku’s Yoshi (Gackt) is not new for him.
Gackt, full name Gackt Camui, is a Japanese musician, singer, composer and actor, who is wildly popular not only in Japan, but in all of Asia. Even though this will be his first Hollywood film, Gackt isn’t a stranger to a life behind the camera. His skills in martial arts have already made their way to television screens in the US, first in the action film ‘Moon Child’ which he co-produced, co-wrote and starred in. He’s also used his martial art skills in the motion capture for the games Bujingai and Final Fantasy Crisis Core, and most recently the television historic drama Fuurin Kazan which aired all over Asia. His role in the show is what caught the attention of Bunraku’s director Guy Moshe. Moshe went to Japan personally to ask Gackt to be apart of the project.
The film is still listed as in post-production on IMBD.com and no real date has been set for the release. The filming of the movie, however, has been completed. It’s planned to come out during the summer, so look out for the film’s debut.
