Cowboy Bebop: Knocking On Heaven's Door

This film follows the actions of a bounty hunter team with the lead hunter, Spike Speigel. Obviously being based around bounty hunters, the film has several scenes of violent action and themes of death. The film is set between the 22nd and 23rd episode of the tv show and introduces the major theme that will run into the finale of the series. The basis of the film is that in the future after man has stretched his reach out across the galaxy, intergalactic bounty hunters will become the new form of defence against criminals. It is depicted as similar to the "wild west" of the US with space acting as the new frontier. Spike is a bounty hunter always strapped for cash but despite his desire to merely "get by" he is forced to act as an involuntary hero.

The film outline is that in 2071, Halloween is a big time national holiday on Mars. However a few days before Hallow's Eve, a tanker truck is blown to smithereens in the middle of a busy street, and a deadly viral infection is released with the explosion. The Bebop crew - Spike Spiegel, Jet Black, Faye Valentine, and Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV - are instantly after the culprit when the gargantuan reward of 300,000,000 woolongs is announced. But the case gets stranger and stranger as the cold-blooded Vincent Volaju, who supposedly has been dead for ten years, seems to be the prime suspect. Meanwhile, Spike encounters the dangerous Electra, who too seeks the madman. The result is that Spike is dragged into saving the planet from a deadly virus when he himself is only truly concerned with the money. The film offers up many questions as to Spike's true "hero" nature but as with many animes, the hero is rarely all that they appear.

The violence that occurs is primarily between Spike and main bad guy Vincent as shown in this AMV.



The violence is a combination of graphic Jeet Kun Do performed by Spike along with multiple scenes of gun violence. The fighting, typically oriental, is all done with a kung fu edge. This is specifically noticeable here as it is the style of Bruce Lee which is used, thus anchoring a more western audience then most conventional anime might seek to reach. This form is electric fast and appears devestating to those in combat. Multiple shots are shown where Vincent spits blood or saliva as he is knocked about the combatant areas. The result is a much more graphic fight scene whereby you truly believe damage is being done to the characters.

The style is similar to many kung fu films, shots being encorporated from long and medium range to show the whole fight as it occurs cross cut with close ups of damaging blows. The anime style of imitating a normal movie is perfect here as while in an American cartoon we'd be far more likely to avoid the close ups, this gives a true sense of brutal violence and impact. Characters also degrade as the fight continues with clothes becoming more ragged and more blood and face damage becoming apparent.

The gun fighting, however, is pretty tame during this film in comparison to other films and noticeably the tv series. Vincent, however, shoots Electra in the shoulder,Spike shoots Vincent's hand and Vincent's demise is intrumented by a bullet from Electra's gun - three times when guns allowed for huge spouts of blood and graphic images of the characters bleeding. Bebop used guns to high detail, glorifying them enough so that you could identify the exact guns in use. These close ups gave the guns more power and eminently intensified danger and increased realness of the film. In western films, such glorification is highly avoided, and as such this use creates that true sense of fear of the weapon as though you are actually facing down the gun as opposed to it just existing to kill.

Body images of characters bleeding are also common and despite the "cartoon" appearance, this can appear more real because the charatcer exists in an animated world, so animated blood really is there blood and not just fake. The graphic nature of the injuries as well escalate above the norm shown in an action film, flesh wounds becoming common and the graphic pressure to the ribcage on Spike is far more powerful then most of the simple injuries you'd normally see. These are used to create a sense of power and true excitement that a weaker injury may well not create. The pure extent of damage far exceeds expectations and thus, we expect the characters death alot more then in conventional films, making it more exciting if they survive and more heroic that they actually will risk their lives like this.

The final scene from the series is another great example of violence as follows: