A cowboy without a gun and a samurai with no sword pitch up in a town lorded over by a gang of killers in this superficially dazzling action yarn, named after a style of traditional Japanese puppet theatre. Writer/director Guy Moshe's genre mish-mash of martial arts, pulp crime and western takes the vibrant visuals of Dick Tracy and adds a post-Sin City CGI sheen. There are plenty of neat touches, such as the pop-up book production design; however, the intrusive digital graphics and video-game flourishes do become rather wearisome. And an increasingly unnecessary narration simply adds to the suspicion that most of the film was put together after the actors went home. Still, the cast is interesting, with Kevin McKidd having a blast as a Yorkshire-accented assassin, though Ron Perlman's villain and Woody Harrelson's sage-like bartender fall foul of their need for hackneyed philosophising. All nominal star Josh Hartnett is required to do is to look good in a moustache and a stetson, which, to his credit, he does. It's certainly a colourful confection, but behind the well-rendered artifice it's also a bit of a flimsy one. And at two hours, it rather outstays its welcome.