Interview with Sion Sono for Film Combat Syndicate

10.10.2021Black Dragon

In the trailer for his new film "Prisoners of the Land of Ghosts", there is no characteristic inscription "Film by Siono Sono", and there is not even the usual prefix "director", designed to introduce the famous filmmaker to the American public. But there is an attention-grabbing phrase "created by the perverted mind of Siono Sono." If we put aside marketing and daring hyperbole, we can say that today there is no There is no one in the film industry who has such a unique vision as the fifty-nine-year-old Japanese auteur.

The film that first attracted international attention was the 2001 film "Suicide Club", which was released just as the J-Horror genre was gaining popularity around the world, being dark and wildly gory, was appreciated by the masses for its transgressive approach. This transgressive quality foreshadowed what Sono would bring to all his subsequent work. His films actively work to defy classification - touching meditations on love and religion (which also feature kung fu perverts, kidnapping cults, and all of which take up a full four hours) - "Revelation of Love", a crazy mockumentary film at the intersection of action and comedy - "Why don't you play in hell?", a meditative black-and-white sci-fi tale "Whispering Star", his adaptation of a popular manga (in the form of a hip-hop musical) - "Tokyo Clan", a violent but darkly humorous "based on a true story" thriller "Cold Fish", or his fantasy children's film that interweaves a Christmas tale with the kaiju genre - "Love and peace". This is just a very short list of some of Sono's films, but his intentions are clear: whatever he does in his prolific career, it won't be exactly what audiences expect.

This idea was also embodied in his American debut. "Prisoners of the Land of Ghosts"Where Nicolas Cage (Leaving Las Vegas) features a nameless anti-hero in a post-apocalyptic world tasked with finding and rescuing Sofia Boutella (“KINGSMAN: The Secret Service”), playing the missing daughter of a local warlord played by Bill Moseley ("The Devil's Rejects"). The description looks like a standard action movie, but all the details listed below make the experience much stranger than it seems at first glance. Black leather suits covered in bombs, cowboys mixed with samurai, radioactive ghouls, scavengers who love neon techno, and cultists performing musical numbers - all this awaits any viewer willing to risk immersing himself in what Cage himself called "the wildest film that he's ever starred in."

I recently had the honor of speaking face to face with Sion Sono as part of a promotion for the film "Prisoners of the Land of Ghosts". We talked about his sources of inspiration, how his work as an artist is reflected in his film works, about his friendship with Nicolas Cage and much more!

Your films combine so many different elements and evoke a wide range of emotional reactions. How do you achieve this desired result creatively?

Sion Sono: Using "Prisoners of the Land of Ghosts" as an example, I tried to capture the extremes of two cultures - American on the one hand and Japanese and Oriental culture on the other, in an attempt to create a kind of vinaigrette. For me this is a kind of experiment. I didn’t quite understand what this would ultimately lead to. But I wanted to bring this idea to life, all these ideas about mixing the extremes of “West/East”.

I remember many years ago you stated that you had no desire to make films that were popular in your homeland of Japan. As you have achieved more and more success and worldwide recognition, have you managed to not lose that rebellious feeling that you had in your youth?

Sono: I grew up watching a lot of American and European films. So whenever I've made films in the past, I've never really tried to make them for Japan or for Japanese audiences at all. I've always wanted to shoot in the "American style", or in the spirit of the films that influenced me. And now I have the same approach, if that makes sense.

Your films have such a strong visual style. I know you are an artist. How do you usually find the right tone for your films? How does your art help with this, for example, in a project like “Prisoners of the Land of Ghosts”?

Sono: I did all the storyboards myself. All visual sketches. These sketches actually became the production designs, costumes, and actual works of art in the film. All this came from my paintings.

What were the main influences on the visuals of your film?

Sono: Absolutely nothing comes to mind. This time I tried to create something that people have never seen. Maybe I was subconsciously thinking about all those American films I watched in my youth. Even then, I still wanted to do something beyond that. Something that people haven't seen before.

(Pause)…. I don't know, maybe "Escape from New York" John Carpenter? It may well be, and I also told Nick (Cage) this, but the director I respect the most at the moment is Paul Verhoeven.

I love Verhoeven, he's an amazing director.

Sono: Yes Yes. Yes.

On a related note... I read that many years ago, when you were a film student studying abroad in America, you rarely attended class, preferring instead to stay home and watch B movies. What lessons did you learn from these films?

Sono: This is true. I was living in San Francisco at the time, and I made a great friend in a guy who owned a video store. There were so many of them. Films... not even category "B", but category "Z"! Z-movies that didn't make any sense. I watched them all, fish man vs flight attendant... cheerleaders vs zombies and all that stuff. These films, no matter how bad they were, somehow brought out a lot of emotions in me and made me happy. And they still excite me. That's probably where most of my creative energy comes from.

If you could combine someone's film you love with Prisoners of the Ghostland for a double feature, which film would you choose?

Sono: (Long pause) "Babe".

(Everyone laughs)

Amazing choice. Have you thought about working with actor/stuntman Taka Sakaguchi again?

Sono: Over the past decade I have worked a lot with Takom Sakaguchi. I really trust his work and the chemistry we have. So when we decided to shoot the film in Japan and decided on the "samurai action" concept, I already knew that Sakaguchi would be the action director. I also wanted Tak to be involved in the film as an actor. I wanted to bring it to an international audience, especially in the States. Tuck is the biggest action star and I wanted the world to take notice.

And, of course, I can’t help but ask what you think about working with Nicolas Cage.

Sono: Before I met Nicolas Cage, I imagined him as some kind of big Hollywood star, you know? But when I met him in person, Nick turned out to be very modest. Very smart, delicate. Very calm. He said that he had seen a lot of my films and that he really liked them. So of course I immediately thought he was great and wanted to work with him. When we discussed the script "Prisoners of the Land of Ghosts", I told him I'd been thinking a lot about spaghetti westerns and the imagery Sergio Leone. To which Nick replied that when he read the script, the main character "Hero" reminded him of the character Charles Bronson "Harmonica" from the film "Once Upon a Time in the West". So, there was an immediate understanding between us and we got along very well.

So, finally, this question is: what do you think your legacy as a director will be?

Sono: I love the films and directors of Hollywood's Golden Era. They made a lot of films in a short period of time. They had a lot of movies, right? I like that idea and I think my style is more like that than, say, one film every five years. Because sometimes these filmmakers of the past made a lot of films without having a clear, specific vision at the very beginning. But one way or another, some of the films they made became true Hollywood classics. So, I just want to keep making a lot of films as often as I can, rather than trying to focus on one film every five or ten years.

That is, after all, “quantity trumps quality.”

Sono: (Laughs) Yes. Think so.

Official source: filmcombatsyndicate.com
Date of publication: 13.09.2021
Translation: Black Dragon

Home » The Interview » Interview with Sion Sono for Film Combat Syndicate
Tags: Prisoners of the Ghostland, Nicolas Cage, Sion Sono, So Sakaguchi

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