"Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man."
-- Chuang-Tzu, 396-289 B.C.
Cowboy Bebop (2001 Japanese release, 2003 American release) Starring... ??? Rating: Four stars of five
There were at least three different sets of voice actors for Cowboy Bebop, The Movie, for it's Japanese, American and English release, so it's difficult to tell from the credits who we were actually listening to. If you're a fan of the series released in America, rest assured that the voices are the same. (I was afraid the film would be in Japanese with subtitles.)
Daughter Shannon (8) is a huge fan of the series. I discovered it by accident, as Shannon had been watching it in secret on Cartoon Network during their "Adult Swim" (adult oriented programming) time period after 9:00 PM. I came into the room one night and was aghast at what she was watching on what was supposed to be a "safe" children's channel. As we argued about it, I became hooked, and we ended up watching the rest of the episodes together.
So, when the film came out, of course we just had to go see it. Cowboy Bebop is rated "R" for violence but is in actuality surprisingly tame for the rating.
The film was completed in 2001 but wasn't released in America until 2003, and then only in selected "art" theaters. There was only one theater in the Portland metropolitan area that was showing it -- the Hollywood Theater, downtown Portland on the east side.
The Hollywood is one of those giant balconied theaters that has been divided up into one large screen and two small screens. Cowboy Bebop was showing on one of the small screens. So, after paying $13 for all three of us (which would have been $32 at any Regal) and $6 for our usual snacks, ($19 at Regal prices) we began the long trudge up the ramp to the second story screen. Along the way we met a man in coveralls with a mop and a bucket. Shannon asked him if he was God. He didn't get it.
The film quality was very good, but the sound was just ok. The theater only had 3 channel sound (no evidence of surround channels at all) and the center channel was a little too bright. This is a shame, because the high point of the series has always been it's music -- a blend of '60's high-energy stage band jazz and '90's head-banger rock.
Some of the music can be found at this website:
http://www.cowboybebop.da.ru/
The site is in french but it's not difficult to figure out. Click on "Let's Jam" and then click on "Audio" to get a list of tracks. The tracks with an arrow to the right are available in Real Audio. "Tank" is the main theme for the series. (They use a different theme for the film.)
There are five (!) CDs available with music from the series. They are definitely worth listening to.
"Cowboy Bebop, the series" is a single story arc of 26 episodes. The season finale "The real folk blues" (which is also the name of the end song) is a two-parter. All the episodes (called "sessions" in the series) are named after jazz or blues songs.
The movie takes place chronologically just before the season finale. This puts the viewer in a difficult position. The movie spoils certain episodes of the series, but the series finale spoils certain plot points of the movie. Moreover, no attempt at all is made to "catch you up" on what's happened so far -- you're dumped right into the story and left to fend for yourself.
Mind you, that's a perfectly valid way to write a script, and it definitely makes the viewer pay attention. But people not familiar with the series may leave the theater rather confused.
So, here's the background story in 25 words or less:
Earth has been damaged by some kind of jumpgate experiment, forcing humans to spread out over the solar system. Mars, Venus, and Jupiter's moons have been terraformed and have breathable atmospheres.
The jumpgate allows cheap, easy travel between the planets. Mars in particular has become a mix of various Earth icons from past and present -- you may see the Eiffel Tower, World Trade Center and Golden Gate Bridge in one city. Spaceships and Edsels parked side-by-side. People sipping "Starbucks" in futuristic vehicles in a drive-in showing a 1940's western..
Government is catch-as-catch-can and police are almost nonexistent. Filling the gap are the "cowboys", bounty hunters who roam the solar system bringing felons to justice for cash. Four bounty hunters, Spike, Faye, Jet and Ed, travel the solar system via jumpgates in the spaceship "Bebop" looking for the next cash deal. They are usually down on their luck, subsisting on instant Soba noodles and trying to keep their aging equipment together. Faye is probably the most successful of the four, but tends to lose her reward to gambling debts.
I won't attempt to summarize the film here, as the trailer tells you everything you need to know. The trailer can be found here:
http://www.sonypictures.com/cthe/cowboybebop/clips/main.html?path=trailer
(You need Real Audio to view it.)
So, how was the film?
As already mentioned, the music is an integral part of the film, and is very good. The animation is, in short, incredible. It's a seamless blend of computer and conventional animation -- seamless in that you can't tell which is which -- and has some of the most lifelike human motion and expression I've yet seen in an animated film.
The film takes it's time building up the plot and exploring the characters. Personally, I prefer Cowboy Bebop's slow pacing to the attention-deficit collection of barely-connected images present in most action films. Bebop has more than enough action, but you have to wait for the plot to unfold, as slowly and beautifully as a flower opening to meet the sunrise.
I guess my only quibble with the film is that it ends too abruptly -- the main plot comes full circle with a rather lengthy (and somewhat unnecessary) end soliloquy, and then the credits roll. It would have been more satisfying to spend a couple minutes winding up the subplots before kicking us out of the theater.
But the film has enough good points that I can ignore a few minor issues. If you've seen the series you can fill in some of the gaps yourself.
Interesting links:
Official Cowboy Bebop (the movie) website:
http://www.sonypictures.com/cthe/cowboybebop/
Cowboy Bebop fan sites:
http://www.futureblues.com/ http://www.geocities.com/RFBlues http://www.cowboybebop.da.ru/
Enjoy.
Ron
========== X-RAMR-ID: 34967 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 1156754 X-RT-TitleID: 1116623 X-RT-AuthorID: 2596 X-RT-RatingText: 4/5
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews