SILVER

[COWBOY BEBOP: TENGOKU NO TOBIRA] [カウボーイビバップ 天国の扉]
"See you, space cowboy." Shinichirō Watanabe's landmark anime series COWBOY BEBOP received the silver screen treatment with the 2001 release of COWBOY BEBOP: THE MOVIE (known as COWBOY BEBOP: KNOCKIN' ON HEAVEN'S DOOR in Japan). In 2071, the bounty hunter crew of the spaceship Bebop — Spike, Jet, Faye, Ed and corgi Ein — are after a lucrative contract put out on a bioterrorist hellbent on exterminating the population of Mars by releasing a deadly virus on Halloween. This thrilling, feature-length outing for Watanabe and his team is bolstered by a higher production budget and propelled by the series' acclaimed mixture of neo-noir and space Western. The lively, jazz-inflected score is by composer Yōko Kanno. DIR Shinichirō Watanabe; SCR Keiko Nobumoto; PROD Haruyo Kanesaku, Yutaka Maseba, Masahiko Minami, Minoru Takanashi, Shirō Tanaka, Masao Ueda. Japan, 2001, color, 115 min. In Japanese with English subtitles*. RATED R

*Subtitled Japanese version Feb. 5; English dubbed version Feb. 6 & 9.