of the Show! which aired on July 20, 2011. Critical reception Bunraku has been met with negative reviews, with a 17% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 23 reviews, with an average rating of 3.96 out of 10, and the consensus being: "Bunraku admirably strives for visual panache, but the staging, acting, and effects are dismal with a complete lack of excitement". On Metacritic, the film received a weighted average score of 28/100 based on 11 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable". Mark Deming of the AllMovie gave the film 2.5/5 stars, saying, "Bunraku is a movie that's all about visual style, and narrative and character barely fit into the picture ... The movie looks like such a remarkable crazy quilt of themes and inspirations that you can't help but wish that writer and director Guy Moshe put half as much effort into his screenplay". Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News gave the film one out of five stars, saying, "It should surprise no one that visually quirky, graphic-novelish, pulp-noir action flicks rarely come through the sausage machine intact". Dennis Harvey of Variety also disliked the film, calling it "a pic that's akin to a terrarium of plastic flowers -- gaudily decorative, but airless and lifeless". Scott Mendelson of The Huffington Post, however, pointed out that "The film is certainly a case of style over substance, and the utter lack of substance may be fatal for some viewers. But the picture boasts a unique visual palette and some interesting ideas ... Bunraku is not quite a good film, but it is surely a bad one worth watching for those who know what they are getting into". References External links International Sales (IM Global) 2010 films American fantasy action films Bunraku 2010s fantasy action films Films shot in Romania American independent films American martial arts films Martial arts fantasy films American dystopian films Films produced by Ram Bergman Films scored by Terence Blanchard Fiction about origami Japan in non-Japanese culture American post-apocalyptic films Samurai films 2010 martial arts films Films produced by Keith Calder 2010s English-language films Films with screenplays by Boaz Davidson 2010s American films 2010s Japanese films