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Film Review: Prisoners of the Ghostland (2021) by Sion Sono

Occasionally, and particularly during the last years, a number of works look like a tribute to himself, with him implementing aspects of his great movies of the past. This approach actually worked for some titles, with “Tokyo Vampire Hotel” being a great sample. It seems though, it does not work at all in a Hollywood-Japanese collaborative setting, with “” functioning as a faulty mixture of “Sukiyaki Western Django”, “Mad Max”, “Preacher” and Sono's past movies. Let us take things from the beginning though. 

“Prisoners of the Ghostland” is streaming exclusively on and

The story is set in the frontier city of Samurai Town, wherea ruthless bank robber, Hero, who  supposedly did not shy away from killing innocent bystanders during his “jobs” is sprung from jail by the wealthy and quite sinister kingpin The Governor, who wants him to find the whereabouts of his adopted granddaughter Bernice. The Governor promises Hero his freedom, but also straps him with a leather suit that can detonate his hands and testicles if he does not abide by his very specific instructions, and will actually detonate completely if he does not finish his mission in three days. In his quest, Hero stumbles upon a number of other prisoners, Yasujiro, a man with mysterious motivations, and his former partner in crime, in a path that could lead to redemption. 

The most obvious thing here is that the movie is a complete mess. The many arcs implemented in the story do not make sense both individually and as a whole, with the film ending up as a collage of ideas that do not fit each other in any way. Probably the most uncanny thing is that Sono managed to shoot a film that, although is completely uncunny, also manages to look cliche in many of its aspects. Furthermore, the chorus-like moments seem ridiculous, the characterization is annoyingly non-existent, and the whole thing emerges as a waste for the rather impressive cast, since Sono does not seem to take advantage of neither , who plays the granddaughter, nor , who is still, though, the most appealing character in the whole film, particularly in the action scenes. 

Furthemore, the caricature-like approach of many characters that appear in the film does not work at all, the cinematography is pretty bad and the SFX do not save the visual aspect, and the editing is as nonsensical as the whole film actually. 

So the question is, does the title exhibit any qualities? The answer is definitely, very few. There is something rather entertaining in seeing getting blown apart bit by bit, Tak Sakaguchi looks as cool as always, while Sofia Boutella exhibits her charisma, even if it is hidden under the layers of buffoonery here. Probably the only thing that truly stands out is Toshihiro Isomi's production design, with a number of sets looking particularly impressive in their dystopian approach, and the use of mannequins working quite well in the sense of uncanniness they emit. 

That's all there is however, in a “Prisoners of the Ghostland” that is so bad, that I am sure at some point, years from today, it will probably get the title of cult

About the author

Panos Kotzathanasis

My name is Panos Kotzathanasis and I am Greek. Being a fan of Asian cinema and especially of Chinese kung fu and Japanese samurai movies since I was a little kid, I cultivated that love during my adolescence, to extend to the whole of SE Asia.

Starting from my own blog in Greek, I then moved on to write for some of the major publications in Greece, and in a number of websites dealing with (Asian) cinema, such as Taste of Cinema, Hancinema, EasternKicks, Chinese Policy Institute, and of course, Asian Movie Pulse. in which I still continue to contribute.

In the beginning of 2017, I launched my own website, Asian Film Vault, which I merged in 2018 with Asian Movie Pulse, creating the most complete website about the Asian movie industry, as it deals with almost every country from East and South Asia, and definitely all genres.

You can follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

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