Riding Bean

Description

Bean Bandit is the top courier in the Chicago area, and a man who isn't shy about operating on the wrong side of the law. Of course, his clients must also pay a pretty penny for his speedy services. Unfortunately, Bean's reputation catches up with him when he is framed for kidnapping a 10 year-old girl, whom he doesn't realize is in trouble, by a group of shady criminals.

Customer Reviews:

Riding Bean is a Action Packed Nutter.......2006-07-17

Riding Bean was produced by Kenichi Sonoda who did Bubblegum Crisis and Gunsmith Cats so if you've seen any of these your already know what to expect - ACTION & STYLE!

This is a high octane, fast electric paced anime which never takes a moment to slow down and let you take a deep breath. It has everything from incredible car chases to action packed showdowns and shootings.

Bean Bandit (our main character) is the definition of a bad boy. He can get so completly wreckless that his very attractive female partner must always keep him in line.

It's also worth noting the music is done by David Garfied and complements the anime perfectly. It's feel good, frantic electric guitar plugging and screeching to the fast tempo set in the anime.

Conclusion - Highly Recommended to Everyone - 5 Stars out of 5!

Some good driving action in lightweight anime crime thriller.......2004-12-18

RIDING BEAN (1989) is a 45-minute Japanese animated crime thriller--with some humorous elements--set in Chicago and featuring an all-American cast. Bean Bandit is a high-paid getaway driver whose last job, for a pair of ruthless killers/armed robbers who are not quite what they seem, leads to reluctant involvement in a kidnapping case involving the 11-year-old daughter of a Chicago-area tycoon. Bean and his female sidekick, Rally Vincent, are soon saddled with the kidnap victim and have great difficulty returning her without invoking the wrath of the police and the tycoon's vengeful private army. When they catch up to the real kidnappers, the chase is on.

The tone of the piece is light-hearted and fast-paced, with as much emphasis on Bean's driving skills and the remarkable features of his custom-made car, which get him out of more than one tough scrape, as on the story. It's nothing like the more serious (and more violent) Crying Freeman and Golgo 13 anime series. While there's much more bloodshed and brutality in those series, their idealized hitman heroes are actually much nobler characters than Bean and Rally, never harming innocent people and killing only those who deserve it. Bean and Rally, in contrast, are complicit in cold-blooded murder of innocents (committed during the robbery that opens the story) and endangering the public safety (causing numerous accidents in the car chase scenes) and, on a moral scale, only a notch above the killers/kidnappers who employ them.

All that said, there's a lot of good action here, including a spectacular car chase through the streets of Chicago that draws on well-known car chases from more famous live-action movies. Although the DVD offers both English and Japanese-language tracks, I tend to prefer the English track for a story set in America with an all-American cast of characters.