Cowboy Bebop the Movie: Knockin' on Heaven's Door

After the success of the anime cartoon series, Cowboy Bebop the movie was released in 2001 called Cowboy Bebop: Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.

The movie is set in 2071. A strange pathogen seems to be infecting some of the inhabitants of Mars and the Government has issued a substantial 300 million woolong reward for the capture of whoever is behind it.

That’s when the Bounty Hunter team Spike Spiegel, Faye Valentine and Jet Black make their move to get their hands on that hefty bounty!

They then go after the man behind the pathogen, Vincent. But many others are also after him including a woman named Electra. But getting their hands on Vincent proves to be quite difficult and before long most of the team are in trouble, either locked up or hostage to Vincent and must escape to continue and accomplish their mission.

Some Classic Characters

We’re first introduced to Spike and Jet during a convenient store robbery. The two men step in and blow apart their operation with ease while Spike shows off some cool kicks and moves. This really sets you up to understand their elite level of skill in these situations but also identifies a clear difference between Spike and Jet.

Spike is a little bit more instinctive while Jet is more of a thinker, but the two compliment each other quite well. The rest of the movie seems to focus more on each team member as they get separated though, and less on this difference in character.

The character of Vincent is a little mysterious in the beginning and seems to be very clever and powerful being a few steps ahead throughout most of the movie.

The story goes ahead with decent pace and is relatively interesting, although I did find myself getting a little bored at times, but this didn’t last long. The characters make the show, while the story unfolds in a pretty standard fashion.

The Martial Arts and Action

This movie is a part of Eric Scissorhands List (The List of movies which inspired me to create this blog) and although there were a few flashes of the fighting arts in the introduction scene. I spent most of the movie wondering when I’d see more fights, and it seems there are only a few.

We see a few very quick moves during the movie, but what we see between Spike and Vincent at the end is the main display.

The two face off and some decent martial arts movements, kicks and lots of technical punches are traded in a well animated face off between the two. But that’s pretty much it aside form one or two other quick fights.

Very few martial arts themes were presented and the martial arts displayed are mostly quick, but displayed well. It does have a little bit of martial arts credibility, but not as ‘martial arty’ as I was expecting being on the list.

The Verdict?

An anime classic! It barely scrapes in as a martial arts movie (in my opinion) as it is a classic anime action film that I’d recommend it to fans of the genre. It’s pretty cool and entertaining 🙂