Cowboy Bebop: Tengoku no tobira(Japan, animated, color, 2001) A.K.A. Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' On Heaven's Door or Cowboy Bebop: The Movie thanks to Bob Dylan's lawyers and the lackwits at Columbia TriStar Films Cast(French dub): Bruno Muellenaerts(Spike Spiegel) Arnaud Leonard(Vincent Volaju) Stephane Flamand(Edward) Shinichiro Watanabe's 1998 series Cowboy Bebop is considered by many to be a classic of animation on television, oozing style, violence and a great jazz-based score from every pore of it's existence. After a somewhat lengthy absence(long enough for Cartoon Network to release an English dub), the Bebop crew return in this fabulous film(released in North America in 2002 to some quite positive reviews from art house critics) that takes an interesting story and expands it in a way the series couldn't, there's some SERIOUS philosophical depth here, not as much as, say, End Of Evangelion, but enough for your average action flick.
Opening with an insanely cool convenience store robbery sequence(replete with memorable dialogue and a cool "fish-eye" framing technique) and not letting up until it's VERY METAPHORICAL and beautifully animated ending. CB:TNT packs on humor, drama, thrills and DEEP THOUGHT by the crateful. You'll laugh, you'll scream, you'll shout "THAT WAS F**KING COOL!!!!", you'll have the distinct urge to crash a lecture on the human psyche! This movie has it all!
Our protagonists are Spike(lazily voiced by a bored-sounding Muellenaerts), a slacking loser of a bounty hunter who harbors an "interesting" past, Jet(I couldn't find a voice credit for the French dub on IMDb), a ex-cop and master of vegetarian cooking, Faye(same as last note), a problem gambler with amnesia and Edward(given a soulfully bizarre lilt by Flamand), an androgynous female hacker with zero attention span and an unholy amount of flexibility(which she spends most of the film demonstrating). After a search for a local hacker with a five million dollar bounty on his head goes horridly wrong, the gang are left in pursuit of Vincent Volaju(Who Leonard lends an inherent amount of spookiness to), a bioterrorist with a military history who supposedly has been dead for the past three years., and really is!
After close to two hours of comedy, violence and mind-f**k plot developments, the end credits roll and you may wedge your way from the edge of your seat. The film entertains on many a level and will more than certainly please fans of the series as well as newcomers. Despite me having the desire to watch it French, the film is best experienced with the English dub(close to flawless, expect minor characters are wooden and there are a few agitating accents) or the original Japanese(despite the "authenticity", I never enjoyed the Japanese voices for the Bebop crew, except Jet) with subtitles in a language of your choice.
Verdict: 100/100, not be missed by anyone who loves action or anime.
Opening with an insanely cool convenience store robbery sequence(replete with memorable dialogue and a cool "fish-eye" framing technique) and not letting up until it's VERY METAPHORICAL and beautifully animated ending. CB:TNT packs on humor, drama, thrills and DEEP THOUGHT by the crateful. You'll laugh, you'll scream, you'll shout "THAT WAS F**KING COOL!!!!", you'll have the distinct urge to crash a lecture on the human psyche! This movie has it all!
Our protagonists are Spike(lazily voiced by a bored-sounding Muellenaerts), a slacking loser of a bounty hunter who harbors an "interesting" past, Jet(I couldn't find a voice credit for the French dub on IMDb), a ex-cop and master of vegetarian cooking, Faye(same as last note), a problem gambler with amnesia and Edward(given a soulfully bizarre lilt by Flamand), an androgynous female hacker with zero attention span and an unholy amount of flexibility(which she spends most of the film demonstrating). After a search for a local hacker with a five million dollar bounty on his head goes horridly wrong, the gang are left in pursuit of Vincent Volaju(Who Leonard lends an inherent amount of spookiness to), a bioterrorist with a military history who supposedly has been dead for the past three years., and really is!
After close to two hours of comedy, violence and mind-f**k plot developments, the end credits roll and you may wedge your way from the edge of your seat. The film entertains on many a level and will more than certainly please fans of the series as well as newcomers. Despite me having the desire to watch it French, the film is best experienced with the English dub(close to flawless, expect minor characters are wooden and there are a few agitating accents) or the original Japanese(despite the "authenticity", I never enjoyed the Japanese voices for the Bebop crew, except Jet) with subtitles in a language of your choice.
Verdict: 100/100, not be missed by anyone who loves action or anime.