The recently released “Predator” film “Prey” has scored a ton of acclaim along with being proud of its authenticity of conveying the Comanche nation. For the film to be made, there was one concession – though a Comanche language track is available, the movie was still filmed in English.
That won’t be the case with the upcoming film adaptation of the celebrated 2020 PlayStation video game “Ghost of Tsushima”. Heavily inspired by filmmaker Akira Kurosawa’s works, the film hails from “John Wick” franchise director Chad Stahelski who intends to pay respects to the game and to Kurosawa in all the right ways.
Speaking with Collider this week, he confirms he’s filming the project entirely in Japanese, and the studio is backing him all the way. Asked why he wants to do the film, he says:
“Honestly, it’s probably the same things that would scare the s— out of most people. It’s a fantasy period piece. It’s done with reverence to Akira Kurosawa, who’s probably in the top five biggest influences of my life as far as film goes.
It’s a chance to push technology and people in a story that’s timeless. It’s your typical mythological story of good versus evil, finding a man, watching him change the world or the world changes him. It’s all the Joseph Campbell stuff that you’d love in a story. You put that in with, obviously, so I’m told I have a bit of a Samurai fetish, which is probably true from Manga and anime and stuff.
So, I think if we did this right, it would be visually stunning. It’s character driven. It’s got an opportunity for great action, great looks. And honestly, we’d to try to do it, all in character. Meaning, [that] it’s a Japanese thing about the Mongols invading Tsushima island.
A complete Japanese cast, in Japanese. Sony is so on board with backing us on that. I’ve been going to Japan since I was 16. I have a love of the country, love of the people, love of the language. To try to direct not only in my language, but someone else’s and culturally shift my mindset to bring apart that in a cool way that still entices a Western audience.”
Upon release, the game became one of the most acclaimed and fastest-selling titles of the PlayStation with over nine million copies sold in under two years. Set on Tsushima Island off the Japanese coast in the 13th century, the story begins as the fearsome Mongol Empire invades the island, wreaking havoc. As one of the last surviving samurai, Jin Sakai rises from the ashes to fight back.
Stahleski admits he knows the responsibility he has to the studio by making the choice to shoot in Japanese:
“No one is going to give me $200 million to do a technology-push movie without speaking English. I get it. So, I have to be clever, and I have to figure out what’s fiduciarily responsible to the property, to the studio and still get what I want out of it and still make it something epic.”
He goes on to say thanks to Netflix and success stories like “Parasite” and “Squid Game,” western audiences are getting more and more used to reading subtitles.
