prisoners of the ghostland movie review

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There's something mighty bizarre with Sion Sono 's "Prisoners of the Ghostland," unrelated to when Nicolas Cage screams, "I'll karate chop you! Hi-f**king-ya!" Yes, there are fleeting delights to be had from this movie, especially if one loves to be surprised by absurd production design. East literally meets West in this world, as samurai and Western iconography are layered on top of each other for a setting called Samurai Town, where gory duels across genre can break out on neon-lit streets that always wants its movie-set artifice and artistic abandon to be known. But while the world that contains Cage can sometimes be eye-popping, there's a hole at the center of "Prisoners of the Ghostland." No movie with Nicolas Cage, directed by the wonderfully weird Japanese director Sion Sono, should be this taxing, drawn out, and plainly boring.  

Cage is the type of actor whose galactic performances directly feed from the stakes of the stories he's in—think about the intense emotional journey of " Mandy ," with heavy metal guitars accompanying his unrelenting journey into hellish revenge, and the gold that movie gave us. In "Prisoners of the Ghostland," Cage saunters around most of the film with a suit that is geared to blow up different limbs and also his testicles. In theory, that sounds like amazing and funny character motivation, but it gets lost in whatever this movie tries to pass off for the plot. You come for ideas like Cage wearing a testicle trap, and then you get rambling exposition about some ghostland boundaries, history of a nuclear explosion, flashbacks to a bank robbery involving Cage's character, and backstories for people whose emotions are played surface-level by their director.  

Cage's character (named Hero in the credits) is wearing the suit as a type of guarantee that he won't run away, as he's been forcefully enlisted by a powerful, malevolent figure named The Governor ( Bill Moseley ) to return his missing daughter Bernice ( Sofia Boutella ) from a place called the Ghostland. If Hero tries to take it off, it detonates at his neck; if he touches Bernice, his arm will face the same fate. If he dares get excited around her, well, there are two bulbs by his crotch. The star power of Cage's performance, in Man with No Name mode, comes from select line readings, a few yowling moments here, or a stolen goofy image there. It's also a little exciting (in a few bursts of ultraviolence) to see Cage in a form that he has inched toward for so long—his own version of a samurai. Only Cage could have played this type of role, but his character itself is so uninteresting beyond being played by Nicolas Cage.  

This is Sono's long-anticipated English language debut, and he treats it like a victory lap with no attention to the game. The script was written by Aaron Henry and Reza Sixo Safai , but it was undeniably taken apart and tangled by the unpredictable instincts of Sono, who is not precious in the slightest with even bits of emotion or backstory that would give us something to care about. He's especially slight when it comes to creating momentum for the story, even though it involves a rescue mission of sorts, a "Mad Max"-like apocalypse of sorts, and a flat subplot about a samurai named Yasujiro ( Tak Sakaguchi ) who later adds to the movie's body count. 

Sono is instead most concerned with getting every dollar out of his budget. It's all about these massive sets and the dozens and dozens of cultish-looking background characters who chant weird things and sings songs, and it's hard to get into the joke (whatever he might think it is) when it seems it's all one rambling set-up. The crumbling ghostland of the movie is massive, complete with a towering clock that multiple people in rags play tug-of-war with to stop time from passing, as one of the movie's many tangents. But it adds to the movie's odd, mundane nature that it's given a white and gray sheen—a far cry from the rich, heavy colors back in Samurai Town. Sôhei Tanikawa's cinematography promises great color in the beginning with the slow-motion shot of a gumball machine bursting open during an over-the-top shoot-out, and it feels like a con that we then get stuck with such a drab color palette that only reminds us of the story's bland stakes. 

There's the old Gene Siskel anecdote about whether a movie is more interesting than watching its actors have lunch. "Prisoners of the Ghostland" is more the case of, it would be more interesting to see its extras having lunch, preferably in their costumes. Imagine a group of people in samurai outfits, or shoulder pads with nails, or covered in toilet paper, talking amongst themselves about what they just did in a massive scene that Sono directed with the ease of a kid playing with action figures. Sometimes the movie is amusing because you can imagine its extras on the brink of laughing.  But that charm wears off too, especially as "Prisoners of the Ghostland" proves to be a movie that's far better at initially surprising you than holding your attention (it's especially grating in a second viewing, I found out).

Perhaps the greatest value about "Prisoners of the Ghostland" is that it will expose numerous Cage-philes and movie fans to the filmmaking of Sion Sono, in part because it's impossible to behold the extravagant excess of this movie and not want to know more about who made it with such abandon. Sono deserves the same kind of mainstream niche as a Quentin Tarantino or a Robert Rodriguez (I recommend Sono's "Why Don't You Play In Hell?", or for the more ambitious, his almighty pervert epic "Love Exposure"), and having Cage endorse him like this is a rare moment of the world doing good. Cage and Sono are kindred nutcases: they are artists who do not question themselves, and while they have a sense of humor stranger than we can comprehend, they are too sincere for irony. But "Prisoners of the Ghostland" is truly just a beginning; a false start to what should, and still could be one of the greatest cinematic collaborations since sound met motion.  

Now playing in theaters and available on digital platforms.

Nick Allen is the former Senior Editor at RogerEbert.com and a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Film Credits

Prisoners of the Ghostland (2021)

103 minutes

Nicolas Cage as Hero

Sofia Boutella as Bernice

Bill Moseley as Governor

Nick Cassavetes as Psycho

TAK∴ as Yasujiro

Yuzuka Nakaya as Susie

Young Dais as Ratman

Lorena Kotô as Stella

Canon Nawata as Nancy

Charles Glover as Enoch

Cici Zhou as Chimera

Louis Kurihara as Curi

Tetsu Watanabe as Nabe

• Aaron Hendry
• Reza Sixo Safai
• Taylor Levy
• Joe Trapanese

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Let Nicolas Cage Guide You Through the Madness That Is Prisoners of the Ghostland

This is the one where Nicolas Cage’s testicle gets blown off halfway through. It’s also the one where he finds himself wading through spike-suited scavengers and jigsaw-mannequin-faced zombies in a postatomic landscape. The one where he battles cowboys and samurais and gangsters all at once. Sion Sono ’s Prisoners of the Ghostland throws so much extreme weirdness and violence at us that we might overlook the fact that there’s method to its madness: Beneath the craziness and cacophony lies a tender, tragic tale of emotional paralysis and a civilization eating away at itself.

Cage’s character is simply referred to as “Hero,” which is interesting since in the film’s opening scene, he is anything but: He’s a wide-eyed, bellowing bank robber whose actions, alongside his (more aptly named) sidekick Psycho’s (Nick Cassavetes), cause the death of a young child. Imprisoned for years, Hero is let out by the imperious, all-white-clad Governor (Bill Moseley, sporting a ridiculous drawl) of Samurai Town — a phony Old West–style place populated almost entirely by geishas, cowboys, and samurai — on the condition that he travel into the surrounding atomic wasteland and retrieve the Governor’s beloved step-granddaughter, Bernice (Sofia Boutella). Well, “beloved” … we’ve already seen Bernice fleeing Samurai Town under cover of night, and it’s clear that she has no love for this place or the Colonel Sanders–looking sicko who runs it.

Hero is outfitted with a leather jumpsuit that has explosives placed around the arms, the groin, and the neck — to prevent him from harming or lusting after Bernice, or trying to remove the suit — and given five days to bring her back. And the Ghostland isn’t some kind of vast, empty desert. Not long after he heads out, Hero finds himself in a settlement crowded with different tribes of broken people: a group of gearhead scavengers decked out in makeshift armor; a frozen gaggle of traumatized, paralyzed victims, their faces covered in fractured mannequin masks; and a ragged cult obsessed with preventing a giant clock from moving forward in time.

The whole movie, one could say, is about time. With its cowboys and samurai and geishas all living under the iron fist of the Governor, Samurai Town itself seems stuck at a cinematic intersection, a demented fantasyland constructed out of iconic images of the past. The people of Ghostland, meanwhile, regularly replay the history of the nuclear apocalypse that laid waste to their world. Nobody wants to move forward: One side is trapped by force; the other, by its own trauma and fear. Hero himself discovers that he might have been originally responsible for Bernice’s enslavement by the Governor. He’s also haunted by the images of people he’s killed, but they beckon him with smiles into a blue sky. Is it a taunt? Is it hope? Could it be both? Was any of this worth a testicle?

Anyway, there’s a lot of symbolism in there, not to mention a lot of pro forma, Joseph Campbellian hero’s-journey stuff. But one of Sion Sono’s great talents is throwing so much dazzling, surreal, dreamlike imagery at us that nothing ever feels heavy-handed or cliché. It’s almost like a gonzo variation on the way deep-focus long takes once revolutionized cinema last century; he liberates the viewer to find the things that matter to them.

With Cage’s screen presence to carry us through the story, chaos becomes a virtue. The actor, who spent much of the past decade as a punch line for taking on mountains of paycheck gigs that many deemed beneath his talents, is in the midst of a renaissance of sorts. For starters, viewers have begun to reclaim some of those earlier, easily dismissed efforts and recognized in them the work of a performer always looking to do something surprising. His astonishing turns in such idiosyncratic wonders as Mandy , Mom and Dad , and Pig have also helped.

In Prisoners of the Ghostland , he gets to inhabit a rugged, haunted, macho protagonist. It’s a familiar role, but Cage, who has always been a big actor (how could he not be, with those exaggerated features of his?), is also the rare performer who can be poignant while indulging in pastiche. And so, he lets this seemingly generic action-movie type be funny, angry, ridiculous, and tragic all at once. We understand that if we stick with him, he’ll guide us through this cluttered, beautiful, violent hellscape. And what else are heroes for?

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Prisoners of the Ghostland Reviews

Prisoners of the Ghostland lacks any excitement and catharsis that made Sono the filmmaker he is today.

Full Review | Original Score: D | Mar 5, 2024

A world of total anarchy where samurais, cowboys, nuclear explosions, modern cars, and more collide to surround an otherwise simple narrative with nonsensically hilarious storylines and awesome action sequences.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Jul 24, 2023

If you thought Mandy, Color Out of Space, Willy’s Wonderland or Pig offered up Nicolas Cage at maximum unhingedness, wait until you get a load of Sion Sono’s “delirious mash-up of Western, samurai movie and post-apocalyptic thriller”.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 8, 2023

Prisoners Of The Ghostland doesn’t quite deliver on its outlandish premise but Cage does enough to merit it getting a release due to good behaviour.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 12, 2022

With a pinch of Kurosawa, a dollop of Mad Max, and a dash of Leone, Sono throws everything at the wall here and lets the audience decide whether they want to be along for the ride or not.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 22, 2022

This meeting between these two cinematic wildmen ends up being equally fascinating and frustrating. It’s just a shame that Sono’s story always feels secondary and his lust for the surreal is so overpowering.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 17, 2022

Tarantinesque fare ran through the Mad Max mill where everything goes. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Jun 15, 2022

Then again, if the one thing missing in your life is seeing Nicolas Cage call a group of post-apocalyptic survivors a "bunch of bitches" while lamenting his lost testicle, this is the movie for you.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 19, 2022

Prisoners of the Ghostland has impressive production design and cinematography, but this visually stylish action flick is too much of an incoherent mess in all other areas to be a truly enjoyable experience.

Full Review | Apr 18, 2022

An entertaining enough film that is worth dissecting for its many themes lying under the surface.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 10, 2022

Prisoners of The Ghostland will certainly have an audience, but throwing away the rulebook is only impressive if theres something to replace it with. For all Sono and Cages enthusiasm, the end result is just too messy.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 3, 2022

Prisoners of the Ghostland is like a failed yet well-made pilot episode, one that teases high drama but doesnt have anything interesting to say about the characters.

Full Review | Feb 18, 2022

"Prisoners of the Ghostland" is so bad, that I am sure at some point, years from today, it will probably get the title of cult

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Dec 30, 2021

It could be entertaining to the right viewer.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Dec 27, 2021

Prisoners of the Ghostland tries to be something larger than it really is, and it doesn't spend enough time excelling in any certain spot to make itself stand out from the rest of the field.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 3, 2021

The movie is aptly titled, since most viewers will feel as if they're being held hostage by this dreary, punishing slog.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Nov 21, 2021

Prisoners of the Ghostland is certainly gonzo, but is there meaning to the madness? It seems ironic that a film which contains so much bizarre imagery could feel so lackluster at the same time.

Full Review | Original Score: 5.5/10 | Nov 18, 2021

A big, bold lesson about the perils of optimism.

Full Review | Nov 16, 2021

[It] doesn't conjure up much of a spark here; it's more bombast than lean...

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 13, 2021

Prisoners of the Ghostland is a hard film to take seriously. Thankfully, it doesn't take itself all that seriously either.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 12, 2021

‘Prisoners of the Ghostland’ Review: A Match Made in Heaven — or Post-Apocalyptic Hell

The combination of Nicolas Cage and Sion Sono is so weird, fans of either eccentric may not even mind how bad the movie is.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

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At some point in the distant future, long after nuclear holocaust or airborne plague has wiped out the human race, some film critic (we’re like cockroaches, sure to survive such an apocalypse) will no doubt uncover a list of the projects Nicolas Cage has turned down, and it will finally become clear how the actor determined the course of his career.

For about a dozen years, from mid-’90s Bruck-buster “The Rock” through family hamster-tainment “G-Force,” it has seemed that the ka-ching of a cash register must have been the deciding factor, but in the dozen years since, a pattern has emerged that Cage isn’t merely cashing checks but may in fact be shaping the world’s most eccentric filmography by design.

Proof positive is his agreement to make “ Prisoners of the Ghostland ” with Japan’s resident weird-meister Sion Sono — a revolving position that amounts to being the unofficial poet laureate of extreme psychosexual shlock, one that’s been passed from Nagisa Oshima down to Takashi Miike through the years and now lands squarely on the shoulders of prolific provocateur Sono (“Love Exposure,” “Antiporno”). Such directors enjoy a time in the sun, when film festivals looking for something far outside the realm of the usual decide the flavor du jour deserves to be championed.

Just when Sono appeared to have passed his expiration date, the Japanese director has agreed to splatter-paint his first majority-English-language feature, choosing a half-baked samurai Western whose wild-eyed antihero (named “Hero,” since Christopher Nolan had dibs on “Protagonist”) might be played by none other than Cage. This is cause for celebration in some corners — like the one where Sundance programmers have been gifted a Sono joint for their pandemic-afflicted 2021 Premieres section — and dissociation in others, since Cage’s how-gonzo-can-you-go limbo bar has now crossed over into a parallel dimension (where this questionable “National Treasure” will soon be playing “Tiger King” Joe Exotic).

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For those still on the fence, the good news here is that even when so clearly bored, Cage is never boring. That means even though this script — credited to Aaron Hendry and Reza Sixo Safai — appears to have been written with the express intent of being absurd, the worse it is, the more fun Cage can have with it. As when Sono suits him up in a black leather union suit with exploding sensors located at his neck, elbows and crotch. One wrong move, and tiny bombs will teach him a lesson.

“They say you’re a veritable phantasm,” drawls the Governor (Bill Moseley as a white-hat bad guy), addressing Hero after he’s been paraded through the streets in a buns-baring fundoshi. This scene is set on a postmodern Gion-meets-Old-West backlot set identified as Samurai Town (though there’s no evidence that any other Towns exist on this planet), where Village People cowboys cluster beneath neon signs and geisha gawk at the size of Hero’s gyro.

Beyond the city limits lies “the Ghostland,” a “Mad Max”-like dirt-scape the Governor describes as “a stretch of highway where evil reigns,” while his loose-cannon granddaughter (Yuzuka Nakaya) stands there screaming about her missing sister Bernice (Sofia Boutella). It’s all meant to be outrageous, but it’s more exhausting than anything, as the Governor explains the deal by which Hero — who’d been imprisoned for years after a bank robbery went wrong — can earn his freedom: Retrieve Bernice, who’s been kidnapped and decoupaged with bits of mannequin skin, without abusing her. Should he try to slap her, the suit is programmed to blow off one of his elbows. Think impure thoughts, and he can say goodbye to his testicles.

Three days later, in what’s meant to be a rallying cry, Hero bellows, “If you’d told me three days ago I’d be standing here with one arm and one tesssticallll trying to reason with you bitches, I would have said ‘Impossible’ too!” It’s not Shakespeare (that would be the tossed-off “Alas, poor Yorick” line), but it’s the kind of dialogue that Cage maniacs have come to expect from the actor. Meanwhile, the “bitches” to which he so refers are the “Ratman and his Rat clan,” plus a bunch of toga-clad modern-dance oddballs arranged like extras from D.W. Griffith’s “Intolerance” before an enormous clock, determined to stop time (which make’s Hero’s journey seem puny by comparison).

Don’t look for logic in Ghostland, but feel free to feast your eyes on everything else. Sono’s design sense has come a long way since the degraded-video aesthetic of 2001’s “Suicide Club.” Toshihiro Isomi’s too-busy (but admirably kooky) sets suggests a Japanese spin on the sort of recycled-future garbage dumps found in Terry Gilliam movies, where rusty plumbing and jerry-rigged Christmas lights can transform an abandoned car park into a traveling circus.

Combine those visuals with Chieko Matsumoto’s costumes and some pretty creative facial makeup, and Sono has effectively guaranteed that we’ll always have something interesting to look at, even as the brain struggles for meaning. He even makes room for a musical number, set to Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle,” which is better executed than the climactic showdown, where Bernice brings a gun to the swordfight and samurai Yasujiro (Tak Sakaguchi) can’t decide whose side he’s on.

There was a time when Cage’s longtime fans half-wished the actor would take a hiatus. These days, he makes five or six movies a year, evidently selecting his roles for maximal eccentricity (hitting the jackpot with “Mandy,” which became a midnight cult fave). In any case, better this than the days of “The Weather Man” and “The Wicker Man.” Old buddy Sean Penn once said of Cage, “He’s not an actor; he’s a performer,” and projects like these are too self-consciously out there to suggest otherwise.

Who are such movies for? Well, jaded film critics and audiences so desensitized by formula that anything this far off the rails can be forgiven for stinking, so long as it surprises. Somehow, it doesn’t actually seem surprising that Cage would partner with Sono. But the creative choices they make together, from an exploding gumball machine to endangered testicles — well, they must be seen to be believed.

Reviewed at Sundance Film Festival (online), Los Angeles, Jan. 31, 2020. Running time: 102 MIN.

• Production: A Patriot Pictures presentation of an Untitled Entertainment, Boos Boos Bang Bang, Eleven Arts Studios, XYZ Films, Patriot Pictures production, in association with Sion Prods., Saturn Films, Komodo Prods., Union Patriot Capital Management, LLC. (Int'l sales: XYZ Films, Los Angeles.) Producers: Michael Mendelsohn, Reza Sixo Safai, Laura Rister, Ko Mori, Nate Bolotin. Executive producers: Natalie Perrotta, Nick Spicer, Aram Tertzakian, Yuji Sadai, Toyoyuki Yokohama.
• Crew: Director: Sion Sono. Screenplay: Aaron Hendry & Reza Sixo Safai. Camera: Sohei Tanikawa. Editor: Taylor Levy. Music: Joseph Trapanese.
• With: Nicolas Cage, Sofia Boutella, Nick Cassavetes, Bill Moseley, Tak Sakaguchi, Yuzuka Nakaya. (English, Japanese, French dialogue)

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‘Prisoners of the Ghostland’ Review: Nicolas Cage and Sion Sono Make a Ballsy East-Meets-Western

David ehrlich.

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Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2021   Sundance   Film Festival. RLJE Films releases the film in theaters and on VOD on Friday, September 17.

Some movies don’t seem inevitable until they’re made. The most absurd thing about Sion Sono ’s “ Prisoners of the Ghostland ” — a sukiyaki psych-Western that casts Nicolas Cage as a criminal on a mission to rescue a runaway girl from a post-apocalyptic wasteland before the bombs attached to his balls explode — is that it didn’t already exist.

This is the first film that Sono shot (predominately) in English, and the first film that Cage shot with a (predominately) Japanese crew, but “Prisoners of the Ghostland” leaves no doubt that these two wildmen speak the same language. If this gonzo cross-cultural mash-up pulls taut across more ideas than it has skin on its bones, well, it’s easy to forgive Sono and Cage for getting a bit overexcited about meeting for the first time. (It may be worth noting that Sono suffered a heart attack during pre-production that scuttled plans to roll in Mexico and put the project in jeopardy until Cage suggested moving the whole thing to Japan.)

All but the most ad-hoc aspects of “Prisoners of the Ghostland” spark with the thrill of watching two completely self-possessed artists share a vision. Even when nothing else in the film makes sense, the unhinged ethos of its own creation leaves a clue behind with the clarity of a body-chalk outline. So does the movie’s title: As much as this is a story about anything, it’s about breaking the shackles of where you’re from and finding new strength from the people you meet along the way. There are perhaps too many times when that story is more compellingly told behind the camera than in front of it. But there are also other times when Cage screams at the sky while stretching the word “testicle” for the length of an aria.

For those unfamiliar with the poet emeritus of  ero guro nansensu (lit. “erotic grotesque nonsense”), Sono emerged from the sewers of Japan’s underground cinema like an irrepressible rat king who balled up the punk energy of Oshima Nagisa, the perverse nihilism of Tsukamoto Shinya, and the renegade mayhem of Suzuki Seijun into a coherent body of work that continues to mutate in wonderfully unexpected ways. A random and reductive sample of Sono’s films might include a four-hour epic about the overlap between organized religion and upskirt photography (“Love Exposure”), a grand guignol rap opera about the gang war that erupts after a mafia don is discovered to have a micro-penis (“Tokyo Tribe”), and a romantic epic about a heartsick musician whose pet turtle evolves into a giant kaiju after he flushes it down the toilet (“Love & Peace”). In other words, collaborating with Cage — an actor you might know from his 57 years of being Nicolas Cage — could be the single most predictable thing that Sono has ever done.

Their collaboration is a meeting of the minds that immediately delivers on its orgiastic promise, as shotgun-toting outlaw Hero (Cage) bursts through the doors of a half-empty bank shouting “Banzai!” at the terrified Japanese clientele. Not very heroic at all! Making matters worse is Hero isn’t alone: He’s accompanied by his massive partner-in-crime Psycho (“The Notebook” director Nick Cassavetes ), who’s doing a much better job living up to his name. Welcome to another day in the frontier city of Samurai Town, a two-horse anachronism that feels like it runs along the border between Westworld and Tokyo Disney.

The set design of Sweet Peach Street is a sight to behold, as Sono transforms a studio backlot into an electric fusion of people, cultures, and eras. There’s a cherry blossom tree on every sidewalk and a cowboy hat on every head. Classic Japanese architecture is festooned with English-language electronic tickers, the local kids pal around with a creepy Frenchman in a bolo tie, and the town’s only street appears to be a dusty cul-de-sac that ends with a massive cuckoo clock full of disembodied heads that pop out to chant ominous poetry. Is it even a clock, or just vaguely evocative of one? Who could say. Regardless, it anticipates a movie that — in its own abstruse way — is preoccupied with the stagnation of time and the oppressiveness with which it holds us in its thrall (not just in our time, but also in the time we inherit).

Samurai Town might seem to play by the rules of its own chronology, but its residents serve at the mercy of a man who’s referred to as “the greatest and most powerful clock.” That would be the Governor (Bill Moseley), a white man in an even whiter suit, and some people don’t enjoy living under the tick-tock of his watch — none more so than his adopted granddaughter Bernice (“Climax” star Sofia Boutella , always down to get weird), who hot-rods a sedan with some friends and steals away into the death-infested desert beyond. To get her back, the Governor enlists the help of the only person who might be desperate enough to go out there and get her back before it’s too late.

This is where Aaron Hendry and Reza Sixo Safai’s script really starts to wander off the beaten path. Hero is your basic terse and quippy badass with a heart of gold — imagine Nic Cage doing a slightly more loquacious Mad Max and you’ll be most of the way there — but his circumstances are… unusual. For one thing, he’s forced to wear a leather bodysuit that’s rigged with explosives and designed to “recognize the impulse of a man willing to strike a helpless woman.” For another thing… well, there really doesn’t need to be another thing when you have a time-bomb stitched to your nuts. The Governor, it seems, really doesn’t want anyone “soiling his property.” Hero has three days to get her back (tick-tock, tick-tock), and all the motivation a man could ever need.

From there, “Prisoners of the Ghostland” follows a Hero’s journey that’s been origami-ed into almost unrecognizable shape. In about five minutes flat, Hero is peeling Bernice out of a mask of cross-stitched flesh. (Everyone wears that in the Ghostland — it’s part of their mutant fallout chic.) That leaves Sono with so much time to throw new stuff into the pot that his film starts to feel as if it’s cooking into an allegory for itself.

What follows is a hard pivot from “Escape from L.A.” to “Beyond Thunderdome” — severe even by Sono’s usual standards — as Hero is greeted by the outcasts as a savior, and soon finds himself leading a ragtag army of mutants and feral children in a rebellion against the corrupt forces of Samurai Town. It’s a battle that feels secondary to Sono’s interests; the director’s post-Fukushima work has been haunted by images of abandoned humanity and atomic decay, and “Prisoners of the Ghostland” spends large portions of the movie forcing Hero to confront the grim absurdity of life among people who’ve been left for dead on poisoned land.

The conflict between Hero and his villains is so thinly sketched that it can seem incidental, but Sono has the time of his life digging into a script that fuses American and Japanese cultures through the awful power of their shared nuclear bond. Is there a meaningful relationship between Hero and the war bride who makes him dangerously horny? There is not. Is there any sense of narrative momentum heading into the (uncharacteristically lackadaisical) climactic showdown? Not a drop.

But is there a winged “Rat Man” whose modulated voice makes him sound like a Muppet who played in toxic waste, a prophecy about a man with “thick red blood” who will be the Ghostland’s salvation, and a dramatic reading from “Wuthering Heights?” Of course there is! The film is never more surprising than when Sono deigns to fill in some of the blanks, as its one scene of unalloyed exposition is inspired by the preventative demonstrations performed outside the Hiroshima Peace Memorial every August, and moving for how it allows the ridiculousness of the Ghostland to reflect back on the horrors of our own world.

“Prisoners of the Ghostland” might lose you during some of its less emotionally lucid moments, but even in the Hero’s confusion Cage always seems to know where he is and what he’s meant to do. He’s the unstoppable engine of a weirdly sedate film that often feels like it’s running on fumes; maybe it’s just the fact that his character’s testicles are going to explode off his body if he doesn’t keep things moving, but the actor never lets us forget that the clock is ticking.

Working with a director who complements his destabilizing energy (as opposed to merely tolerating it) has become the obvious secret to unlocking Cage’s full potential, and Sono — much like “Mandy” auteur Panos Cosmatos or “Dog Eat Dog” director Paul Schrader — has the galaxy-brain vision to shoot his star so he feels like a natural expression of the movie around him. “Prisoners of the Ghostland” is a film about a fallen world that will be lost in time until it can escape the chaos of its own creation. Hero can only hope to earn his name and save his testicles if he finds a way to weaponize that chaos into freedom. Lucky for the wretches of the Ghostland, Sono and Cage have forged an alliance that shows the entire world how to do just that.

“Prisoners of the Ghostland” premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. 

As new movies open in theaters during the COVID-19 pandemic, IndieWire will continue to review them whenever possible. We encourage readers to follow the  safety precautions  provided by CDC and health authorities. Additionally, our coverage will provide alternative viewing options whenever they are available.

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Prisoners Of The Ghostland Review

17 Sep 2021

Prisoners Of The Ghostland

It’s perhaps not surprising that this collaboration between Japanese iconoclast Sion Sono and Coppola-spawned maverick Nicolas Cage is stone-cold crazy, a post-apocalyptic samurai Western man-on-a-mission movie. Making his mostly English-language debut, Sono, the cult director behind Tokyo Tribe , Why Don’t You Play In Hell  and  Love Exposure , seems like the ideal partner-in-crime for Cage, both talents happy to swing for the fences in wild tonal shifts and off-the-chain outrageousness. It’s just a shame, then, that their union can’t channel their go-for-broke attitude into something even vaguely coherent and dynamic.

It starts as it means to go on. Cage is The Hero — perhaps a second cousin to Tenet ’s The Protagonist — and we meet him bursting into a bank, wielding a shotgun and shouting, “BANZAI!” at the top of his lungs. Imprisoned, he is sprung from jail by The Governor ( Bill Moseley ), the white-suited boss of (the highly stylised) Samurai Town who needs a favour: his gaggle of geishas, including his granddaughter Bernice ( Sofia Boutella ), have skipped town and now he wants them back. But — to quote Han Solo when the TIE Fighters arrive — this is where the fun begins. For starters, The Hero is forced to wear a leather bodysuit that’s sewn with explosives and primed to “recognise the impulse of a man willing to strike a helpless woman”. But more excitingly, the bombs are stitched to his nuts to stop him playing with the Governor’s property. And you don’t have to be a screenwriting guru to know that if Nicolas Cage has a bomb tied to his balls near the start of Act One, it’s only a matter of time before his gonads are goners.

Completely in sync with Sion Sono’s madcap sensibility, Nicolas Cage is fully committed.

It’s a solidly set-up premise. The Hero takes off to the wasteland next door, where the post-apocalyptic denizens literally turn back time (Cher would be proud) by doing tug-of-war with the hands of an outsized clock. It’s around this point where Prisoners Of The Ghostland starts firing off in all directions with little rhyme or reason, pulling in such bizarre ingredients as a clan of scavengers known as The Rat Family, a Greek Chorus of dancers,  Wuthering Heights , and a Hiroshima allegory. Just at the point where The Hero is seen as the messianic figure who is going to lead the ragtag band of mutants and urchins (all looking like refugees from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome ) against the corrupt Governor, it finds even more weird tangents to dissipate the momentum.

Still, it’s worth it for some cool fights, Sono’s imaginative filmmaking, Boutella, and Yuzuka Nakaya as The Governor’s other granddaughter, who do their best to ground the bonkersness and, of course, Cage. Completely in sync with Sono’s madcap sensibility, the actor is fully committed, be it heading on his mission on a little girl’s bicycle or shouting at the top of his lungs, “If you’d told me three days ago I’d be standing here with one arm and one testicalllllllllllll…” as a way of geeing up the masses. It’s hardly, “I’m Spartacus.” But, as a knowing rejoinder to Prisoners Of The Ghostland ’s madness, it’s priceless.

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‘Prisoners of the Ghostland’ Review: Going Nuclear

If the combination of Nicolas Cage and the director Sion Sono suggests a special kind of lunacy, this sunbaked samurai western more than delivers.

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By Jeannette Catsoulis

With hindsight, we should have known that a collaboration between Nicolas Cage and the dashingly eccentric Japanese filmmaker Sion Sono was only a matter of time. Yet now that “Prisoners of the Ghostland” is here, it seems equally apparent that doubling the weirdness can, for the audience, produce ten times the head-scratching.

The partnership should have been sublime. And maybe if Sono had written the script himself (as he often does, perhaps most movingly in his 2011 treatise on upskirt photography, “Love Exposure” ), this sunbaked samurai western might have made a lick of sense. As it is, Aaron Hendry and Reza Sixo Safai’s story is so busily demented that Cage seems at times uncharacteristically muffled. To play Hero, a reprobate tasked by a white-suited warlord (Bill Moseley) to retrieve the warlord’s missing granddaughter (a persuasive Sofia Boutella), Cage spends most of the movie in a leather suit studded with strategically placed explosives. Should Hero harbor impure thoughts toward his quarry, his gonads will be goners.

Crammed with mugging extras and chanting geishas, scrabbling mutants and ambulant mannequins, “Prisoners” can slide in an instant from haunting (a disfiguring mask slowly peeling from a woman’s face) to circuslike. Sono’s visuals, sizzlingly realized by the cinematographer Sohei Tanikawa, lack neither brio nor imagination. But the ludicrousness of the plot severs any emotional connection to a story whose apocalyptic stylings (the Ghostland of the title is a nuclear wasteland) gesture toward Japan and America’s painful history. In light of which, Hero’s eventual sacrifice of a single testicle seems an entirely negligible forfeit.

Prisoners of the Ghostland Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Google Play , Vudu and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.

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Prisoners of the Ghostland review – testicle-detonating Nicolas Cage sci-fi

Nicolas Cage teams up with Japanese enfant terrible director Sion Sono for an entertaining post-apocalyptic mashup

C ult Japanese film-maker Sion Sono (Love Exposure, Suicide Club) never shies away from an opportunity to shock and surprise with lashings of gore, weirdness and lurid, louche lunacy. Nicolas Cage , meanwhile (now practically a cult himself), loves to rage, bellow and glower in offbeat low-budget films, apparently the kookier the better. They’ve teamed up for this beyond-bonkers, cross-cultural bricolage of styles and influences, and the result is predictably excessive, noisy and more than a little exhausting. But mostly in a fun way, as long as you’re not bothered by gratuitous violence, incoherence and a deep streak of silly.

The setting is some kind of future Earth/parallel universe/post-apocalyptic zona – the why and when is not really important – that’s a mashup of neon-streaked Tokyo fleshpot and Mad Max-style wild west dystopia. A warlord called the Governor (Bill Moseley, hamming it up almost as much as Cage) runs a brothel-prison from which one of his favourite “granddaughters”, Bernice (Sofia Boutella, underused), escapes with three other comfort women. So the Governor hauls our nameless hero (Cage), a former bank robber, out of pokey and sends him off to find Bernice. But first he zips the hero up into a leather jumpsuit rigged with tiny bombs that will blow bits of his anatomy up should he try to hurt her, including explosives attached to each testicle.

Off the hero goes into a wasteland populated by demented extras dressed like an am-dram ensemble playing the rats in a Pied Piper production, folks with bits of broken mannequin parts glued to their bodies, and religious zealots who like to give backstory-revealing presentations with cue cards. Is it wrong to find the funniest part of the film is when one of the bombs goes off and blows up Cage’s left nut? It’s a really good bit, as is the scene towards the end where Bernice’s “sister” (Yuzuka Kakaya) mows down half the cast with a Gatling gun.

If that’s not your cup of tea, then at least it’s pretty hard not to be entertained by Chieko Matsumoto’s exquisite costumes and Toshihiro Isomi’s Mutoid Waste-style sets, or the antic energy emanating from the extras, itself combustible enough to jumpstart a rusting nuclear power station.

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Movie Review – Prisoners of the Ghostland (2021)

September 13, 2021 by Robert Kojder

Prisoners of the Ghostland , 2021.

Directed by Sion Sono. Starring Nicolas Cage, Sofia Boutella, Bill Moseley, Nick Cassavetes, Tak Sakaguchi, Yuzuka Nakaya, Young Dais, Lorena Kotô, Canon Nawata, Charles Glover, Cici Zhou, Louis Kurihara, Tetsu Watanabe, Takato Yonemoto, Shin Shimizu, Matthew Chozick, Ilsa, and Yurino.

A notorious criminal must break an evil curse in order to rescue an abducted girl who has mysteriously disappeared.

Much like Nicolas Cage has one of his testicles blown off in Prisoners of the Ghostland , the visually gonzo piece pops my cherry for director Sion Sono. Upfront, I will say the style of influences are there, as the production design combining Westerns and 12th-century Japanese culture (with seemingly more modern interior designs and neon-lit exteriors) is impressionable. It’s made up of equally nifty locations like an old west town run by a sordid and abusive governor with a stranglehold over the Japanese residents, forcing them into sexual servitude. Off in the distance, there is also a post-apocalyptic wasteland affected by a toxic disaster that transformed several convicts into freakishly scarred and burned mutants. Meanwhile, the regular civilians worship a doomsday clock while trying to get by, sometimes dressing up as creepy mannequins too, and that’s if I’m understanding this right, to stay hidden from literal ghosts and other enemies.

Again, it’s evident that plenty of creative madness went into the general concept for Prisoners of the Ghostland (also Sion Sono’s English-language filmmaking debut, using a script from Aaron Hendry and Reza Sixo Safai), which only makes it more baffling how uneventful and disengaging 90% of the movie feels. In hindsight, maybe I shouldn’t have spoiled Nicolas Cage losing half of his junk; it’s one of the rare moments something actually happens. Naturally, his reaction is priceless and sure to make the rounds in updated compilations of the legendary star melting down.

Nevertheless, Nicolas Cage, simply known as Hero, appears to be an intentional contradiction as Prisoners of the Ghostland starts with the beloved madman robbing a bank from the aforementioned Samurai Town with his towering and muscular partner dubbed Psycho (Nick Cassavettes). The act of crime does not go as planned, flashing forward sometime later to Hero locked up, leaving viewers to fill in a few predictable blanks. However, he is sprung from confinement by the governor (Bill Moseley looking like Colonel Sanders and chewing the scenery), who gives the task of treading into the dangerous titular Ghostland to bring back his runaway favorite sex slave (Sofia Boutella’s Bernice, strangely unable to speak for a majority of the running time but one of the only talents that come closest to conveying the insanity of the material as a believable human being).

The kicker is that Hero is forced to trade his sumo wrestler underwear for a leather one-piece equipped with bombs (specifically on the neck, shoulders, and testicles) designed to explode if he threatens to harm Bernice or goes against orders. By the end of the second day, Hero must have Bernice speak her name into a microphone so that the governor knows she is still alive. Otherwise, it’s once again bombs away. Between the botched bank robbery, a melting pot of cultures (with hopes it comes together for a desired thematic effect), simple rescue promise, and urgency of bombs outfitted to the protagonist, Prisoners of the Ghostland sets itself up for a journey of nonstop violence and action paying tribute to both Western and Japanese cinematic influences. For whatever reason, the narrative stops dead in its tracks, with exposition and world-building attempts caught up more in style than characterization. Yes, Nicolas Cage is given some goofy dialogue to shout alongside a ludicrous premise for an action movie, but Prisoners of the Ghostland becomes a prisoner to its own over-stylization.

There is also a mysterious right-hand samurai (Tak Sakaguchi) to the governor, biding his time before starting his own rebellion for personal reasons. It’s a subplot that eventually allows for brief satisfying swordplay, but much like Hero, he also has to wait until the final 20 minutes to start painting the walls red. None of this would be bad if the story itself weren’t derivative, dull, and disjointed. It’s always good to see Nicolas Cage combining his zaniness with legitimate character work, but 45 minutes into this one, it becomes apparent that no one has anything worthwhile to do, leaving one craving a rage-Cage performance. The solid technical aspects of the filmmaking are all that make Prisoners of the Ghostland tolerable throughout its languid pacing and listless story.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check  here  for new reviews, follow my  Twitter  or  Letterboxd , or email me at [email protected]

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Prisoners of the Ghostland review: Nicolas Cage's “wildest” movie is not his best

Cage's East-meets-West fantasia is high on visual iconography and surprisingly low on energy.

Prisoners of the Ghostland may be the wildest movie Nicolas Cage has ever made — at least, so says Nicolas Cage .

Coming from one of our great on-screen demolition experts, this is a bold statement. Few actors — and almost certainly no Oscar winners — have perfected the art of the freak-out like Cage, a brilliant actor who sometimes appears to pick projects by blindly hurling darts at a board (or, more plausibly, at his agent).

In Prisoners of the Ghostland — directed by the prolific Japanese auteur-poet Sion Sono — Cage plays Hero, a po-faced bank robber imprisoned in the bowels of Samurai Town. This strange and colorfully stylized outpost, where cowboy hats and kimonos are equally in vogue, is lorded over by the Governor (Bill Moseley), a despot whose deep-fried Southern drawl and snow-white suits suggest a hybrid of Colonel Sanders and Foghorn Leghorn.

There are hybrids galore in Ghostland , which was written by Aaron Hendry and Reza Sixo Safai. The film bills itself as an “East meets West” fusion, and Samurai Town is staged iconographically as a cross between Akira Kurosawa’s samurai epics and John Ford’s classic Westerns. All the men carry swords or six-shooters or both, and the women are costumed geisha.

Through its color-mad procession of costuming, lighting, and set design, this is the kind of eroto-cinephilic fantasia where high-noon showdowns take place in hanamachi , along streets lined with cherry blossom trees.

Forcibly recruited to retrieve the Governor’s lovely, headstrong daughter Bernice (Sofia Boutella), who’s fled into the post-apocalyptic badlands outside Samurai Town, Hero is outfitted with a leather suit that’s rigged to detonate if he’s not back with Bernice in five days. Oh, and should he make a move on Bernice, the suit’s explosives are located in his nether regions. The slightest hint of arousal will set them off. And so Hero soldiers off, into the wasteland.

Nicolas Cage as Hero in Prisoners of the Ghostland.

A long way from the Hollywood leading-man purgatory he once found himself in, between comic-book movies like Ghost Rider and action blockbuster hits like Face/Off and National Treasure , Cage has spent the past decade appearing left and right in lower-budget productions. These have been frequently forgettable ( Dying of the Light , Pay the Ghost , Primal ) and occasionally revelatory ( Joe , Mandy ).

When Cage is engaged by a filmmaker and a script with a legitimate vision, as in this year’s unexpected tour-de-force Pig , watching him can be sublime, a borderline-religious experience. When he’s decidedly not, as in this year’s lugubrious Five Nights at Freddy’s riff Willy’s Wonderland , watching him can be deeply painful, like catching sight of an old friend who’s fallen on hard times and is embarrassed you’re seeing him this way.

Sofia Boutella as Bernice in Prisoners of the Ghostland.

Arriving on the heels of both Pig and Willy’s Wonderland , Prisoners of the Ghostland pairs Cage with a filmmaker as wildly prolific as he is. Sono has helmed 50-odd projects across film and television, including one magnum opus (his four-hour “upskirt-photography epic,” 2008’s Love Exposure ). Many of his most inspired genre mash-ups out there range from 2001’s J-horror detective saga Suicide Club to 2013’s romantic yakuza meta-satire Why Don’t You Play in Hell?

Few directors currently working are as gleefully propelled by their obsessions and fetishes as Sono, whose style of filmmaking has been described as channeling the Japanese concept of “euro guro nansensu” (erotic grotesque nonsense). In 1985’s I Am Sion Sono! , he declared that “a few things symbolize Tokyo for me: knives, whores, [and] clocks.”

All three factor into Ghostland, especially once Hero makes his way to the titular locale. In this carnivalesque junkyard, time has stopped, mutants scrabble around in the debris, and the unluckiest residents are covered head-to-toe in pieces of department-store mannequins. It’s here that Cage goes truly berserk, engaging in an acting style he’s called “Western kabuki theater.” This amounts to him delivering dialogue at constantly shifting decibels and with the off-kilter intensity that’s become a Cage signature. It’s quite something throughout Ghostland , whether he’s screaming “I’ll karate chop you!” at one assailant or angrily spurning a cool car to ride off on a little bike.

Nicolas Cage as Hero and Tak Sakaguchi as Yasujiro in Prisoners of the Ghostland.

Ghostland marks Sono’s English-language debut, and he originally planned to shoot the movie in a Mexican desert before a heart attack mandated that he move production to Japan. Given this, one can infer the filmmaker was at one point pursuing a vision more closely aligned with Alejandro Jodorowsky’s acid Western El Topo and his subsequent avant-garde classics, The Holy Mountain and Santa Sangre.

And slivers of Jodorowsky’s influence remain; Ghostland combines gorgeous and gruesome in a way that harkens back to the lineage of ‘70s midnight-movie sensations sparked by El Topo. Certain images, especially the mannequins embodying the film’s title, vibrate along that same spiritually strange frequency. But the film stages almost all of its action in just two locations, with Samurai Town and the Ghostland feeling unfortunately artificial as a result.

What’s most missing in all this mayhem, though, is the vision of an auteur actively engaged with the meaning of the euphorically gonzo tableaux he’s staging. Ghostland often feels more like artistic forgery than the genuine article, slavish in its devotion to visually approximating Sono's influences' profane and profound imagery yet oddly inert when it comes to doing anything with them.

Tak Sakaguchi as Yasujiro in Prisoners of the Ghostland.

Ghostland’s 102 minutes pass by, and as aurally pleasing as the film is, its story never really kicks into gear, nor does its pacing thrill the way it should. Sono’s hardcore fanbase will enjoy the callbacks to his previous features littered throughout, but it’s hard not to feel like the director is running on fumes, imitating himself within the confines of an American cinema far less amenable to his once-authentically transgressive verve and political fire.

When the film screened at Sundance earlier this year, its most nirvanic peak was a gory, balletic action setpiece in which Tak Sakaguchi’s samurai Yasujiro sliced and diced his way through a horde of opponents in Samurai Town, all set to Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle.” That particular sequence is bizarrely missing from the theatrical cut, suggesting that last-minute tinkering or rights issues have further neutered what already feels like a half-strength outing for both director and star.

It’s hard to say whether there’s a version of Ghostland that would have more confidently matched Cage in all his crazed glory to a filmmaker as idiosyncratic as Sono. Ghostland is worth seeing for its dizzying stream of visuals and absurdist midnight-movie flavor. Still, without a stronger narrative or directorial style driving it, the film dances across the screen and evaporates in your memory like a charged and weightless daydream.

Prisoners of the Ghostland is in theaters, on-demand, and on digital platforms September 17.

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Mike Flanagan's 87% Rotten Tomatoes Miniseries Proves He's The Perfect Director To Redeem Blumhouse's Exorcist

8-year-old movie that's now on netflix is a must watch after 99% rotten tomatoes smash from last year, everyone who has been banned from the oscars by the academy (& why).

Nicolas Cage's 2021 film  Prisoners of the Ghostland   is an excessive film. Directed by Sion Sono — an award-winning Japanese director known for being subversive and idiosyncratic — the movie   is a highly stylized representative fable that gleefully and deliriously blends genres, themes, and images to create a unique (if at times, bizarre) experience. The plot is deceptively simple, but the story is told through such a perturbing assortment of visuals and events that it's nigh-incomprehensible, seemingly by design. Sono's Prisoners of the Ghostland is easily one of Cage's strangest films — and, based on the visuals alone, is destined to become a cult classic.

Prisoners of the Ghostland  was written by Aaron Hendry and Reza Sixo Safai. On a basic level, the story follows Hero (played by Cage) on a mission to retrieve the young woman Bernice (Sofia Boutella), who ran away from her adoptive "grandfather," The Governor (Bill Moseley). Hero takes the assignment largely against his will; he's a prisoner, thanks to his role in a bank-robbery-gone-wrong with former partner Psycho (Nick Cassavetes). Hero is fitted with a special suit housing various bombs that are designed to prevent transgressions, and he is given a maximum of five days to complete the job — with his failure having fatal consequences.

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Prisoners of the Ghostland  is the rare exception in which the film surrounding Cage's performance is even more extreme than the actor's scenery-chewing. The movie is an anachronistic blend of Western and Japanese iconography and history, fusing elements of the Western genre with chanbara (samurai cinema) and Noh (a form of classical Japanese theater). There are sword-wielding samurai warriors alongside cowboys with guns, contrasted by geisha-like women with cell phones. Many of the townspeople wear masks and exposition is provided by a chorus (both key traits of Noh), yet The Governor looks and talks like a Dixie southern gentleman from the mid-19th-century. The stark contrasts of these juxtaposed images are endlessly disorienting, which is only enhanced by Sono's unusual, and often vivid, visual choices.

The setting in  Prisoners of the Ghostland is limited to only a few locations — the Governor's territory, the Ghostland, and the space in between — but each area is so packed with intriguing details that the movie doesn't feel restrictive. Sono uses every millimeter of his set, packing in the maximum amount of decoration and extracting every possible ounce of visual appeal. From the saturated colors and ever-present twinkling lights to the constant tight-knot crowds of extras, everything in  Prisoners of the Ghostland  is excessive. So much emphasis is placed on the aesthetics and tone of the movie, though, that it detracts from the narrative. There are truly fascinating ideas at the core of this movie, but so often the over-the-top visual choices take precedent.

What's worse, occasionally the direction feels weird for weird's sake. Scenes that otherwise might have been thoughtful or poignant are reduced to a discordant collection of images that are devoid of meaning. In many ways, Cage is in top form in Prisoners of the Ghostland , committing to even the most ridiculous dialogue and behavior with zeal and dedication. Cage is easily the most entertaining factor, almost reveling in the ridiculousness of the situations. He casually flips from deadpan to swagger, inexplicably bouncing between tones.

Hero is a bit underdeveloped, however, and his motivations are undefined. This is a problem across the movie and it's never clear why the characters do what they do. While that might have been an intentional choice, to make the characters representative of concepts rather than fully realized human beings, it makes the movie hard to follow. The larger narrative is kept vague, which only compounds the problem. Often,  Prisoners of the Ghostland  feels vacuous, and while it presents many opportunities for analysis and interpretation, it lacks a fundamental, underlying message to keep the pieces together.

Prisoners of the Ghostland  is the sort of movie that eschews a coherent plot for the sake of a message — but here, that message often comes across as the indiscernible ravings of an unhinged mind. While this very well could be the point (and style over substance is a valid approach to art), it doesn't make for a watchable feature film. As a subversive Arthouse film,  Prisoners of the Ghostland  is a mixed success: it is somehow both not enough and far, far too much. There are those who will be captivated by the strange visuals alone, while others will be drawn to the campy performances by Cage, Cassavetes, and the supporting roles; however, the average moviegoer will find the overall product baffling and extreme.

Prisoners of the Ghostland  poses a unique challenge to movie reviewers: in terms of traditional standards, Sono's film is not "good" — some of the acting is wooden, the story is hard to follow, the characters ill-defined, etc. — but in terms of pure artistic merit, there's certainly something there. Hate it or love it,  Prisoners of the Ghostland  is as unforgettable as it is expressive and provocative, and isn't that the fundamental purpose of art? This is not a movie everyone will enjoy, and even those familiar with Arthouse cinema may find some of the choices here off-putting. Regardless,  Prisoners of the Ghostland has the potential to become a touchstone film in the genre —   and at the very least seems destined for a Criterion release.

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Prisoners of the Ghostland  releases in theaters and on video on demand on September 17, 2021. It is 103 minutes long and is not rated.

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Prisoners of the ghostland, common sense media reviewers.

Unhinged Cage in offbeat, violent samurai-Western mashup.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Movie is mainly about redemption and forgiveness,

No clear role models. Main character begins as a c

Main character and main villain are both White men

Guns and shooting, including a Gatling gun. Many c

Topless woman briefly seen. Erotic poster (with to

Strong language includes uses of "f--k," "s--t," "

Villain drinks sake in one scene. Dialogue about "

Parents need to know that Prisoners of the Ghostland is a post-apocalyptic samurai-Western-action movie starring Nicolas Cage. It borrows heavily from Escape from New York and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome but has its own offbeat sensibility. Violence is extremely strong, with guns and shooting…

Positive Messages

Movie is mainly about redemption and forgiveness, though path to get there involves lots of violence.

Positive Role Models

No clear role models. Main character begins as a criminal and finds redemption, but his methods are violent, brutal. Other characters need to be rescued or are victims, or are flat-out villains.

Diverse Representations

Main character and main villain are both White men (a White man rules a Japanese village), while supporting and secondary characters are largely Japanese. Actress who plays Bernice (Sofia Boutella) is from Algeria. But most female characters are portrayed as either submissive (a gaggle of Japanese women "serve" the governor) or waiting to be rescued from the Ghostland. Men drive this movie.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Guns and shooting, including a Gatling gun. Many characters are shot. Sword fighting with slicing and stabbing. Lots of blood sprays, pools of blood, etc. Martial arts fighting. Children get shot. Women are harassed and briefly threatened in a sexual manner. Woman's head is sliced off (not shown except for blood spatter on ground). Woman threatened with knife. Knife throwing. Main character's suit-bombs go off; he loses a testicle (he then holds up the severed, bloody testicle) and injures his arm (bloody wound). Zombie attack. Huge explosion. Car crash. Spoken story about a nuclear spill and people burned by the poisonous sludge.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Topless woman briefly seen. Erotic poster (with topless woman) briefly shown in background. Man undressed, nothing explicit shown; a woman "checks him out" and comments "I've seen better." Naked mannequin posed provocatively.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Strong language includes uses of "f--k," "s--t," "motherf----r," "c--ksucker," "bitch," "hell," "balls," "testicle," "badass," "godless sodomites," "dirty slut," "whack job."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Villain drinks sake in one scene. Dialogue about "shots of whiskey."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Prisoners of the Ghostland is a post-apocalyptic samurai-Western-action movie starring Nicolas Cage . It borrows heavily from Escape from New York and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome but has its own offbeat sensibility. Violence is extremely strong, with guns and shooting (including a Gatling gun); many characters getting shot and/or killed; sword fighting; slicing; stabbing; blood sprays, spurts, and pools; and martial arts fighting. Children are shot and killed, and women are harassed and threatened in violent and/or sexual ways. An explosive severs a man's testicle; the bloody testicle is shown. There are also zombies, explosions, and more. Language is very strong, too, with uses of "f--k," "s--t," "bitch," and more. There's brief female nudity (bare breasts), and a man undresses -- nothing explicit is shown -- while women comment on his appearance. Brief sake drinking. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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What's the Story?

In PRISONERS OF THE GHOSTLAND, the unnamed hero ( Nicolas Cage ) is a criminal whose partner, Psycho ( Nick Cassavetes ), shoots several bystanders, including a small boy, during a robbery. Unexpectedly, the hero is taken out of prison by the crooked governor (Bill Moseley) and tasked with finding the governor's adopted granddaughter, Bernice ( Sofia Boutella ), who has run away. To ensure that the hero does the job, he's fitted with a suit packed with explosives. If he doesn't finish the job in a certain number of days, the suit will explode. He finds Bernice easily enough, living in a strange, ramshackle city. But he also finds that he's unable to leave because of the nuclear mutants who attack all travelers. Can he find the "hero" within himself and do the right thing?

Is It Any Good?

While it won't be for everyone, this truly bizarre mashup of Westerns and samurai movies, mixed with other bits and pieces, offers a visionary design as well as a thrillingly unhinged Nicolas Cage . Japanese filmmaker Sion Sono , a cult favorite known for Suicide Club (2001) and the equally odd, amazing Love Exposure (2008), makes his English-language debut here (though some Japanese is also spoken). Prisoners of the Ghostland is largely set in what seems like a post-apocalyptic future, or perhaps some alternate reality, where a White man rules a Japanese village that's peopled by both samurai and cowboys, and in an astonishing, ramshackle town, built with random knickknacks. The set design is colorful, and the costumes are incredible.

Plotwise, Prisoners of the Ghostland shamelessly plucks whole ideas from Escape from New York and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome , as well as Ennio Morricone-like music cues, but Sono has enough style of his own that these borrowed items somehow seem to fit. Sono's storytelling likewise takes a pretty straightforward sci-fi/action tale and peppers it with oddities, making it feel like something bracing and even surprising. At the center is Cage (who is unnamed but called "Hero" in the credits), zipped up in his pouchy leather suit with a metal arm brace screwed into place and wearing a broken football helmet. He gives another of the unhinged performances that his fans love; at least this time it goes right along with the rest of the strange fun.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Prisoners of the Ghostland 's violence . How did it make you feel? Was it exciting? Shocking? What did the movie show or not show to achieve this effect? Why is that important?

Where and when does this movie seem to take place? Is it in the future (i.e., post-apocalyptic)? Is it some imaginary world? How does the setting impact the story? What does the setting teach us about our own world?

Does the main character find redemption? If so, how? Is he admirable or a role model by the end?

How are women treated in the movie? Are any of the women characters three-dimensional or powerful?

Does Ghostland look like a good place to live? How do these scenes demonstrate cooperation and working together?

Movie Details

• In theaters : September 17, 2021
• On DVD or streaming : September 17, 2021
• Cast : Nicolas Cage , Sofia Boutella , Bill Moseley
• Director : Sion Sono
• Inclusion Information : Female actors, Middle Eastern/North African actors
• Studio : RLJE Films
• Genre : Action/Adventure
• Run time : 103 minutes
• MPAA rating : NR
• Last updated : June 20, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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