Shudder Saturday: Prisoners Of The Ghostland (2021)

Nic Cage delivers some more Nic Cage craziness in Prisoners Of The Ghostland, but it somehow doesn't feel like the right kind of Nic Cage craziness. HE does just fine, but the film itself fails to lean in to the insanity with the commitment required. There's also a lot more to this than the stuff that is there on the surface level though. I'll get to my own interpretation of things shortly.

Cage plays a potential hero, named Hero, who has been thrown in jail after an armed robbery went horribly wrong (thanks to his gun-happy partner, played by Nick Cassavetes). The Governor (Bill Moseley) frees him because he wants to send him on a mission to save a young woman (Sofia Boutella) who has been taken to the dangerous area known as the Ghostland. Hero is placed in a suit that has explosives wired in strategic positions. He has so many days to find the woman and get her to say her name or explosives detonate. Then he has so much time to get her safely out of the Ghostland or explosives detonate. And if he mistreats the woman in any way, yep, explosives detonate. You might think that this device won't mean anything, considering our hero is actually called Hero, but be assured that explosives do detonate. 

I have now seen about four films from director Sion Sono, and I have loved three of them. Cold Fish, Tag, and Antiporno are all fantastic films, and all are very different from one another. The Virgin Psychics, on the other hand, is absolutely garbage, playing up to the tropes that you would list if creating something to epitomise the worst of Japanese cinema. Prisoners Of The Ghostland has lots of gorgeous visual style, something that Sono can deliver when he wants to (but credit to his DP here, Sôhei Tanikawa), and an interesting, murky, screenplay by Aaron Hendry and Reza Sixo Safai (two writers with very little actual writing experience between them).

What is most interesting here is the way in which Prisoners Of The Ghostland defies viewer expectations. It's a mad concept, absolutely, but it may only be a way to explore Japanese history and culture. I may be very wrong here, and others can happily steer me in the right direction if so, but this feels on a comment on Westerners taking advantage of Japan, moving in after major damage has been done to lay claim to an area they can govern while being scared of so many other parts of the country. It also, even more so, feels like Hero is on a bit of a doomed journey. Despite his name, and self-belief, he cannot be the true saviour of the people, having done his bit to traumatise and damage the person he has been sent to rescue. Know what I mean? Maybe that will seem familiar to some.

Say what you like about Cage, and people are rarely shy about voicing their opinions, positive or negative, on the actor, he throws himself into most of his roles. This is no exception. His character isn't particularly nuanced here, played as almost an avatar for an entire nation/organisation, but his performance is in line with the material. Moseley is good fun in his role, although I wish he had some more screentime, and Cassavetes is enjoyably psycho (which explains his character being named Psycho). Boutella has one of her more thankless roles in the past few years, she's a good actress who has picked a variety of films over the past decade or so, but she does well enough. And I'll also have to mention Tak Sakaguchi, playing the Governor's bodyguard, Yasujiro, excellent and almost stealing every scene that he is in.

It's hard to put my finger on why this didn't work for me. On the one hand, the crazy parts that went totally crazy were fun. On the other hand, the more artistic moments were beautiful. You also get that unsubtle commentary running through it like a rich vein to keep mining for food for thought. It just never found a way to gel together, unfortunately, which meant I was watching every individual moment I liked separate from every other individual moment I liked, each one for a slightly different reason. And when things slow down to almost a crawl, which they do often, the film starts to feel like a slog.

It's certainly worth watching at least once, and I cannot bring myself to rate it as a BAD film, but I wish everyone involved had found a better way to bring everything together more cohesively.

5/10

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Shudder Saturday: Re: Born (2016)

I started thinking about the plot when writing this review of Re: Born and then quickly gave up on that idea. There IS a plot, it's there and it sort of makes sense (I think), but it's just there to service the many frenetic fight sequences. This is an action film with the emphasise on momentum and violence, so let's not pretend otherwise here.

Here's all the plot I am going to give you. Toshiro (Tak Sakaguchi) is a former special ops soldier, AKA Ghost, and a number of bad people want to upset his new, peaceful life. That covers it.

Directed by Yûji Shimomura, Re: Born is a star vehicle for Sakaguchi, who helped to write the story with Benio Saeki (I say story because there isn't much dialogue here, unless you count the swish of blades, the grunts of pain, and the spurts of blood). Which means this all stands or falls on the strength of Sakaguchi's performance. Never fear, he's more than up to the task. The man is a talented physical performer, believable as someone who can stare at a shooter and walk towards them intently, ducking just as the trigger is squeezed to avoid any bullets. And just when you think he can't pull off any more incredible moves, he goes and pulls off some more incredible moves.

The action here is impressive, speedy, and unforgiving to anyone involved. Although there are a few guns, the aforementioned skillsets of Ghost renders them quite useless. That means you get people forced to approach an enemy who is just as quick and savage in close quarters as he is when given time to plan his attack. With his precision and ruthlessness, and his blades flashing and whirring around, Sakaguchi could win any major round of Robot Wars, never mind slicing and killing his way through the crowds of ill-equipped soldiers who try to take him down. But it's worth mentioning that, for all of the speed and viciousness on display here, the action is always pretty easy to flow, it's shot well, moving in and out of the fighting smoothly enough. There are times when things are inevitably a little too busy, but they are few and far between, and action movie fans will be delighted by most of the main set-pieces here. And they are plentiful.

It's hard to rate the performances of anyone onscreen here, unless we do it in terms of their killing efficiency. If we do it that way then Sakaguchi is right at the very top, of course, but then that would put young Yura Kondo (who plays his niece, Sachi) at the very bottom, which isn't fair. Mind you, it would also put Mariko Shinoda, playing a deadly character named Newt, close to the top, and that IS fair. So let's just bundle these three together for some praise, rating them in terms that either relate to their deadly skills or, in the case of Kondo, relate to them just being sweet and vulnerable.

While not quite as good as some other modern action movies that have been namechecked by people who rate this one in the very top tier, Re: Born is a hugely entertaining exercise in graceful brutality, and anyone with even a passing interest in fight scenes that pack a bit more wallop should rush to check it out.

8/10

You can buy the movie here.

Actual "trivia" from the IMDb page for Re-Born