Prisoners of the Ghostland 4K 2021 Ultra HD 2160p

He is an experienced criminal. But it is he who will have to save the daughter of a high-ranking official from the threat.

Prisoners of the Ghostland 4K Review
The hero (this is the name of the character of Nicolas Cage) in a traditional Japanese underwear sits in a casemate. The appearance of the governor in the city saves the most dangerous criminal in the world from certain death. His possessions are a cross between medieval Japan and the wild, wild West, where, in addition to katanas and revolvers, there are also smartphones in the arsenal of local residents. A couple of bombs are immediately attached to Cage's scrotum. He receives the task: to find and bring home the daughter of the governor who has run away from home. Otherwise - "bang!" Cage gets on a kid's bike and goes to ghostland after a runaway.

Prisoners of Ghostland director Shion Sono makes three films a year in the style of the highly artistic B-movie. The West noticed it for the first time twenty years ago, when the anthology of adolescent suicide "The Suicide Club" was distributed around the world. Then at international festivals Japanese madness was raging loudly: Sono's compatriot Takashi Miike admired the puddles of blood in Kinoprob, and the Korean Park Chang-wook filmed the Japanese manga Oldboy about cruel, cruel revenge. But Shion Sono never limited himself to "horrors" alone. You can safely poke your finger at any line of his filmography - it will be at least ... interesting. There is also a study of female sexuality "Antiporno", and reflections on the nuclear trauma of Japanese society "Whispering Star", and at worst the rap musical "The Tokyo Clan." But, changing genres and turning them inside out, Sono in each of his experiments remains true to himself and endows what is happening on the screen with a touch of dreamy delirium filled with black humor, sex and dismemberment.

It is not surprising that Nicolas Cage, an actor who seems to have finally solidified into the status of a thrash movie icon, entered the first project of the absurdist, filmed in English. Cage has stated that it is "the craziest movie" of his career, but unfortunately these words are just advertising. As much as the fans would like the opposite, against the background of Sono's previous paintings, all the ostentatiousness of "The Prisoners" smacks of fatigue. If you subtract a couple of fights and one car accident, then we are left with an incredibly static play, played out in roles. Let geisha dance around every now and then and ratmen dart about, dreaming of inserting a piece of iron into Cage (hello to the masterpiece "Tetsuo - Iron Man"), but all this flickering is framed by the endless declarations of the heroes. Kitsch remains the outer skin of the painting, but does not flow through its veins. Maybe the fact is that before filming began, the director suffered a heart attack. Or that, because of the cultural barrier, he used someone else's script. One way or another, the colorful wrapper hides a banal propaganda for good. First, The Prisoners is a kind of overdue political caricature, with the banner Make this country great again fluttering over the governor's domain. Secondly, the gravestone of the tragedy: the citizens of the land of ghosts - a kind of post-apocalyptic ragamuffins living in a dump city - keep the clock hands at exactly 8:15 (the time the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima). And thirdly, this is the standard story about a strong white man who is tormented by a sense of guilt. He once could not prevent the death of a child and now, saving the governor's daughter, he is working on the trauma. All this takes place, but when didactics is highlighted, it is known to kill the fun. Where Shion Sono used to sprinkle full-blooded images, now chewed up illustrations on the topic.

However, glimpses of the former director's madness are still present. What is happening on the screen deliberately looks like an amateur theater set in a cheap restaurant. Sometimes everything is so bad that it is even good. In places, history ignores itself. Cage gets hit on the head every now and then, chops off and slowly and for a long time wanders through the same dream (three times!). And the so-called gun on the wall shoots long before the last act. On top of that, the most spectacular showdown is mockingly allowed before it starts. At these moments, when the conventions of the plot rudely and ironically break on the knee, air appears in the picture.

But in the end, ends meet each other. And a whole bunch of platitudes fall out on us: nuclear weapons are one of the greatest mistakes in history, capitalists are evil, killing children is bad, reproaching yourself is useless. Feeling like I was going to a carnival, but ended up at a lecture that tries to be a costume fair. And feigned fun is more boring than even the most "abstruse" movie.