Things have been going pretty swimmingly for Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop adaptation. Its lovingly recreated opening credit sequence turned heads. People lost their minds over star John Cho’s lustrous hair. Danielle Pienda, the show’s resident Faye Valentine, had to deal with some sexist fans, but she handled them with witty aplomb. And now there’s its jazzy, snappy official, full-length trailer, which comes replete with dynamic camerawork and editing, as well as an f-bomb dropped into an overly PG-13 world.
The ad, dropped during a Netflix livestream event Tuesday night, sticks close to the original. It, too, finds Cho’s protagonist relating his death-defying adventures to his friend Ana (Tamara Tunie). “If you need to find me, I go by Spike Spiegel these days,” he says.
What follows is some good old fashioned space cruising, with Spike teaming up with Mustafa Shakir’s Jet Black to make a killing bounty hunting. Soon Faye joins them as a reluctant — and often pugilistic — partner. You also see glimpses of other characers: the Teddy Bomber, smuggler Katerina Solensan, and experiment-gone-wrong Pierrot le Fou, the latter a reference to the French New Wave classic by Jean-Luc Godard.
It’s not just fan service that’s been offered up. The series looks more “cinematic” than almost every TV show on right now, with elaborate camera moves, split-screen, and a jazzy score that summons late-night music sessions. More TV should be this stylish.
You can watch the trailer in the video above. Cowboy Bebop hits Netflix on November 19.
