If we are talking about a convict, a bank robber named Hero, who is released from the maximum security prison in which he has been locked up for a suicide rescue mission, it is easy to think of an Escape from New York replica. But here instead of Kurt Russell we have Nicolas Cage, and in the director’s chair we don’t have John Carpenter but the unclassifiable Japanese director Sion Sono.
The union between Cage and Sono can only lead to authentic madness. Defined by critics as a samurai western, Prisoners of the Ghostland is pure frenzy in which the antihero played by Cage must enter a hostile and mysterious territory, inhabited by peculiar zombies and in which time has been suspended, and among geishas, ninjas, samurai or cowboys he tries to rescue the adoptive granddaughter of a powerful mafia boss (Bill Moseley).
The deal would get him out of jail, but he only has five days to successfully carry out his mission. He has no choice, since they put him in a tight leather suit that will self-destruct after the deadline, equipped with mini-bombs in the collar, arms and… testicles in case he tries to give up or impure thoughts assail him. And to get a good idea of what the movie is like, we have the first trailer, released by distributor RLJE Films.
Prisoners of the Ghostland is the first English-language film by Sion Sono, and Cage is accompanied by Sofia Boutella, Ed Skrein, Nick Cassavetes, Tak Sakaguchi, Takato Yonemoto or Narisa Suzuki in the cast.
Nicolas Cage already commented that this was his “wildest” performance. Words that have touched Sion Sono deeply: “I know that Nicolas Cage has done a lot of great works and some of the works are crazy as well. If audiences think that this is the wildest movie that he’s ever made, the craziest movie that he’s ever made, then I would be really really happy to hear that,” the Japanese filmmaker has stated.
The US release, simultaneously in theaters and VOD, is set for September 17.
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