Dirty Harry in outer space?
A lanky man in a blue suit stalks a caped villain through a shadowy web of girders in the broadcast tower that dominates Alba City on Mars. The costumed marchers and jack-o-lantern balloons in the Halloween parade on the street below provide an innocent yet ominous backdrop to the deadly game of cat-and-mouse.
The villain Vincent plans to infect everyone in Alba with deadly nano-machines, microscopic robots made of protein, undetectable to medical science. The ISSP (Inter Solar System Police) and the army have mistakenly staked out the water treatment plant. Only Spike Spiegel and his partners can save the human population of Mars.
Weâre in the animated world of âCowboy Bebop: The Movie: Knockinâ on Heavenâs Door,â which opens Friday in limited release in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities. It continues the interplay of stylish noir adventure and sardonic humor that made the âCowboy Bebopâ television series so popular in Japan and America. Itâs been running on the Cartoon Network as part of the âAdult Swimâ block since September 2000. VideoScan ranks it as the bestselling DVD anime series in North America. Although 21st century bounty hunter Spike Spiegel is described as a âspace cowboy,â heâs a laconic antihero in the tradition of the noir detectives of the â40s. âKnockinâ on Heavenâs Doorâ is a striking example of the ongoing cross-pollination between American live action and Japanese animation. The R-rated film (for some violent images), which is being released by Destination Films and IDP Distribution, is aimed at an adult audience -- particularly young males.
Director Shinichiro Watanabe, who says he âgrew up on American movies,â talked about the film recently in a telephone interview from his home in Tokyo. Speaking through an interpreter, Watanabe explains that âI was influenced by American movies of the â60s and â70s, especially Don Siegelâs âDirty Harryâ and the films of Sam Peckinpah. And, of course, a lot of the film noir movies of the â40s.â
Spike is a tough guy in a tough racket. Heâs a crack shot, an ace pilot and a skilled martial artist, but beneath his cynical exterior is a wound thatâs never healed, left by the woman he loved and lost. Watanabe comments, âSome people compare Spike Spiegel to Dirty Harry, and theyâre both antiheroes.
âBut Spike is an extension of myself. I donât smoke or drink or fight, but I want to -- so Spike does.â
Steven Jay Blum, who provides the English voice for Spike in the movie and the series, says, âLive-action noir detective films definitely help me: I mentally tip the fedora and get the cigarette in my mouth, and it helps me lock into the character, especially in moments that are uncomfortable for me. The most uncomfortable sequences for Spike are when he is vulnerable, like the scene in jail when he [talks about] how he came to fear death. Itâs hard for me to go to that place in life, and it takes some help for me to get there in the studio.â
Mean, jazzy streets
The closest thing Spike has to a friend is his partner, Jet Black, the owner, captain and cook of the spaceship Bebop. A former ISSP officer with a robotic left arm and a scarred face, Jet tries to keep a rein on Spike, whom he describes as âall instinct and impulse.â In the first episodes of the series, they were joined -- against their wishes -- by the rest of the regular cast: Faye Valentine, a voluptuous unsuccessful gambler; adolescent hacker Edward Wong (a girl, despite the name); and Ein, a âdata dogâ that resembles a Welsh corgi. Theyâre all perennially broke and hope to find a criminal with a large bounty on his head.
Spike and his cohorts travel down grimy streets in two-bit towns and casino-satellites. Watanabe explains, âI wanted to create a futuristic world, but a world that people actually live in. Only movie characters could live in the worlds they depict in âStar Warsâ and other science-fiction films. I wanted to make a world where people live and breathe. Even if itâs just a shot of an empty sidewalk, there should be cigarette butts or some other visible traces that people actually walk through that setting.â
The noir tone is intensified by Yoko Kannoâs jazz-inflected score. Few big-budget Hollywood features have suggested urban alienation as effectively as this brooding marriage of gritty cityscapes and melancholy saxophone riffs.
A highly respected composer in Japan, Kanno has written scores for some of the best anime features and series of recent years, including âGhost in the Shell,â âCardcaptor Sakuraâ and âJin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade.â Watanabe describes their collaboration as an enthusiastic give-and-take, with each artist striving to match the otherâs vision.
A nod to Peckinpah
The influence of Sam Peckinpah can be seen in the dynamic choreography and camerawork in the climactic hand-to-hand combat between Spike and Vincent on the broadcast tower. Spike gets thrashed, but according to Blum, creating the illusion of getting punched is âjust a vocal trick. Sometimes Iâll punch myself or Iâll throw a kick -- whatever I need to do to get the sound as accurate as possible. But I have to stay centered on the mike at all times, so I really canât move around.â
âKnockinâ on Heavenâs Doorâ is likely to satisfy fans of the TV series: The final episode left them with the same sense of loss many people felt when the first âStar Warsâ trilogy ended. But the film deserves a wider audience. For years, American animators have wanted to make a feature that captured the dark expressionism of noir detective movies. Watanabe shows how it can be done -- if the studio is willing to accept an R rating for an animated film.
Since completing âKnockinâ on Heavenâs Door,â Watanabe has directed two segments of âAnimatrix,â the American-Japanese co-production scheduled for video release in June in conjunction with the âMatrixâ sequels. Heâs currently at work on a samurai adventure series for TV.
Although there are no plans for further installments of âCowboy Bebopâ at this time, Watanabe concedes that Spikeâs adventures âwill probably continue at some time in the future, although Iâm not sure in what form. When the original 26-episode series concluded, a lot of fans and sponsors wanted me to continue. Thatâs why I made this movie.â
The biggest entertainment stories
Get our big stories about Hollywood, film, television, music, arts, culture and more right in your inbox as soon as they publish.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.