Ghost of Tsushima is getting a movie adaption with the director of John Wick at the helm. The action is going to be phenomenal, but there is one challenge they will have to overcome!
Ghost of Tsushima will join the likes of Halo with a live action adaptation of a beloved video game. Hopefully, Chad Stahelski will do a better job at directing the portrayal of a Stoic, badass killing machine at work. Well, he did the same for John Wick, so this might just work out! Also, Samurai movies have historically worked well with silent protagonists, so this one has all the potential in the world.
Ghost of Tsushima is set in 13th-century Japan during the Mongol invasion. You take on the role of Jin Sakai, a samurai warrior. When the Mongols defeat the samurai forces, Jin adopts unconventional warfare methods, becoming the “Ghost” to wage a guerilla war to liberate Tsushima Island. Ghost of Tsushima is only available on PlayStation at the moment, but a PC port is quite likely.
Ghost of Tsushima Movie: John Wick Creator Chad Stahelski Addresses Biggest Challenge
Video game adaptations have a bad reputation, as most of the time they miss key aspects of what made the game so popular in the first place. With Chad Stahelski directing the Ghost of Tsushima movie, we might have a real shot at an awesome action flick, though.
With the John Wick movies, Stahelski has already proven himself to many fans. John Wick is a franchise that's all about a simple, effective story, a silent protagonist, and beautiful combat choreography and visuals. That's literally perfect for Ghost of Tsushima because that's literally what Ghost of Tsushima is.
Stahelski has also revealed that he's working very closely with the devs, and the story will be a faithful retelling of Jin Sakai fighting off the Mongol Invasion as the Ghost of Tsushima. Chad Stahelski already confirmed that the Ghost of Tsushima movie adaptation will feature a fully Japanese cast and will be fully Japanese… naturally.
Many fans of the game were scared that the movie wouldn't exactly be culturally appropriate. And before you go off: we have seen this happen again and again (Scarlett Johanson ain't exactly Asian, folks).
But Stahelski said that “Western audiences in general are getting more and more used to [reading subtitles]” additionally to:
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.
It's always good news, when a director has a certain dedication to the source material and a certain knack for portraying key elements of the originals' success.
In an interview with ComicBookMovie, Stahelski voiced his “love for the property”, but also what challenges they are facing.
The journey that Jin Sakai goes through from his transition to or his choices of who to become and what the people need him to become [...] is so interesting to me, the characters in the story are definitely something I don't want to lose in any way. It's just the visuals I want to keep.
With this many great stories to tell, it will be difficult for them to wrap it all up in one movie.
It's just how do I pack that much information into a feature that can go on to other features or a TV project or platform for that The trick is not do we have great material, we know we have great material. It's how to make it palpable in any platform, you know, how do we make a great two, two and a half hour movie out of this? Make it satisfying and leave it open to expand further from there, like that's the real challenge is how to take so much great and get it down to a watchable level
As of now, there is no release date, and the director has simply stated that they are going to be taking their time, so I'm assuming we can expect a release date around the time that Ghost of Tsushima 2 becomes relevant – so they can capitalize on the hype.
Ghost of Tsushima isn't the only action flick we're looking forward to: