News > Perlman to Play Villain in "Bunraku"

Cult-favorite actor Ron Perlman ("Hellboy"), has been cast as the villain in Guy Moshe's eclectic martial arts movie "Bunraku." According to The Hollywood Reporter, he'll be joined by Japanese actors Gackt and Shun Sugata, as well as "Josh Hartnett, Demi Moore, Woody Harrelson, Scottish actor Kevin McKidd and Spanish actor Jordi Molla."

The film will feature elements of "comic books, video games, and German expressionism" as well as "puppets and origami." The title "Bunraku" comes from the name of a form of Japanese theater, which features large puppets (somewhat bigger than Muppets, for reference). The plot "follows a drifter (Hartnett) who teams with a samurai (Gackt) to take on an Eastern European gang lord, played by Perlman." This won't be the first time Perlman has put on such an accent. He had a small but memorable role as a Russian sniper in the Russian sniper movie "Enemy at the Gates."

This sounds like a potentially divisive film. Its champions will laud its unusual creativity and international sensibilities, while its detractors will call it a hodgepodge of half-baked weirdness that exists for no reason but to be quirky. Just a prediction. We'll see how it turns out in a year or so.

-David Morgan