One of the most anticipated anime movies in recent years, Cowboy Bebop: Knockin on Heaven's Door reunites Bebop fans with their favorite crew of bounty hunters. Unfortunately, the movie is NOT a continuation of the TV series. Rather, it takes place between TV episodes 22 and 23. However, with beautiful animation, fast-paced story, and more awesome music by Yoko Kanno, Knockin on Heaven's Door is a movie you don't want to miss!
The Year is 2071. The place: Mars. Some mysterious person has attacked a small area with a bio-terrorism weapon (basically a big tanker truck filled with some mysterious agent that kills everyone who comes in contact with it). A whopping 300,000,000 woolong bounty has been placed on the head of the main suspect, a man named Vincent. Faye manages to get a glimpse of the mystery man, and with that, the Bebop crew has a jump on finding him and recovering the bounty. Spike, Jet, and the gang decide that this is a prize worth going after. Along the way, Spike repeatedly encounters a mysterious woman named Electra, who is also after Vincent for her own personal reasons. Who is Vincent? Why did he set off the bioterrorist weapon, and what exactly is it? Who is Electra, and what is her connection to Vincent? These things baffle just about everyone during the film. Spike learns that he actually has a lot of similarities to Vincent, and his outlook on life is defined a little bot more after encountering the man. The movie follows the action as Vincent plots one final bio-terrorism attack, and the Bebop crew race against time to stop him and get the money.
I really enjoyed the Cowboy Bebop movie! While it doesn't really continue the story from the end of the series (which would be kind of difficult to do) it was sort of strange to watch all my favorite Bebop characters doing their bounty-hunting thing again after so long a gap between the end of the TV series and the release of the movie. The film is beautifully animated, the story is fast-paced, with some really amazing arial fight scenes and hand-to-hand combat scenes, and the music by Yoko Kanno is stunning as ever. I can't wait for the US release of this film on DVD!
 Where can I see this movie??
Well, the film hasn't been released on DVD in the US, but I think the release date is sometime in June or July 2003. If you see a Region 0 (no region) DVD of the movie with Chinese and English subtitles on it, it is a BOOTLEG, and should be avoided! As for Theater release, the dubbed version of the film is set to have a US theater release on April 4, 2003. For more information about the release of the movie, and to watch the trailer for it, visit the Official Cowboy Bebop Movie Website. It's a cool site, go check it out! The US theater release will be of the dubbed version, and even though it is a different company releasing the movie than the one that released the TV series, they did reassemble the original English dub cast, which I think is one of the better dub casts out there (though in general I am not a dub fan ^_-) so eveyone who came to love the show through Cartoon Network will be able to hear familiar voices for the characters.
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