If you haven’t heard by now, I love weird movies. Weird, wonderful, completely off-the-wall movies that make you stand up in the middle of the theatre as the credits roll and say “how the hell did this happen?!”
No one currently working today is a bigger purveyor of that kind of film than Sion Sono, maestro of such weirdo classics as Why Don’t You Play in Hell, Love and Peace (your new favourite Christmas movie), Love Exposure, and Suicide Club. He’s one of the most prolific filmmakers in Japan, and has produced a body of work that would make even the Takeshi Miike’s of the world be all “dude, chill.”
Sion Sono’s coming to North America, and he’s bringing Nicholas Cage with him. Sono’s English-language debut is called Prisoners of the Ghostland, and it might be the wildest project that either Sono or Cage have ever been attached to.
Echoing the story beats found in such films as The Notebook (presumably), Prisoners of the Ghostland tells the tale of a criminal (Cage) who is forced to wear a suit covered with bombs and venture into a vast wasteland to rescue a crime boss’s granddaughter (Sofia Boutella), who is being held captive by ghosts. And, by all indications, the movie starts to get really weird from there.
Hold onto your bomb-laden junk, because this is Sion Sono’s Prisoners of the Ghostland.
Prisoners of the Ghostland will be released in theatres and on VOD on September 17, 2021 from RLJE Films.
