Shinichiro Watanabe
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Filmography
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Connections, in both directions
It's that wit that propels a great deal of the surface pleasure of Cowboy Bebop with the archetype of the gangly American cowboy prophet/warrior, one referenced in a mid-film drive-in movie of High Noon attended by Jet and lent a certain degree of poignancy by the slow understanding that the picture (and the series that spawned it) is in love with nostalgia for a post-war age that, particularly for the Japanese, was fraught with ambiguity, shame, and tragedy.
The plot in this feature-length film (released in Japan in 2001) involves bioterrorism, which conveniently anoints it with an especially up-to-the-minute feel (especially poignant when Jet watches a grainy old print of High Noon and waxes nostalgic about the "days when you faced your enemy").
The picture's finale, fatally, seems an extension of the finale of Tim Burton's Batman, complete with deadly gas and parade floats, and a battle atop an edifice that represents a stairway to heaven.
Switching from the small to the big screen with staggering ease, director Shinichirô Watanabe (one of the contributors to " The Animatrix ") has created a brilliant feature-length anime that's good enough to deserve mention in the same breath as "Akira", "Ghost in the Shell", and "Spirited Away".
Fans of Japanese animation, or anime, will point out how successful movies like Akira and Ghost in the Shell have been at just that: combining action and animation with decidedly more adult content.
Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
Directed by Isao Takahata
influenced Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001)
Themes
The question of the title of the film therefore takes on a deeper resonance as one considers the tantalizing mélange produced by a marriage of noir, the western, and a jazz movement founded on unrest and violence, sold through a uniquely Japanese medium (animé, natch) that has been the vehicle for some of the most profound examinations of nihilism, violence, and romanticism (thinking especially of masterworks like Grave of the Fireflies and last year's Spirited Away ) in the modern cinematic vocabulary.
Knockin' on Heaven's Door (1997)
Directed by Thomas Jahn
influenced Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001)
Visuals
Unlike the recent "Patlabor WXIII: The Movie," which tried to turn a comic sci-fi TV program into a thriller, "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" preserves the look and tone that have made the "Cowboy Bebop" series so popular on both sides of the Pacific.