Highlights

  • The Ghost of Tsushima movie should strive to create a similar immersive ambiance as the game, with beautiful and majestic environments that evoke the spirit of Tsushima.
  • The movie should be made in Japanese to maintain authenticity and immerse the audience in the historical drama of the story. Involving industry veterans and referencing the history of samurai cinema would enhance the film's quality.
  • Given the director's background in stunt work, the Ghost of Tsushima movie should feature outstanding combat and action sequences, utilizing the unique abilities of the main character and allowing for creative freedom in choreography. The film should also focus on a tighter and more focused story to bring something new to the table and allow the narrative to breathe.

Ghost of Tsushima, developed by Sucker Punch, was heavily influenced by samurai cinema, and now it is becoming a part of it. The movie adaptation has a strong concept to work with, but it will need to follow in the footsteps of its source material to live up to it. Sucker Punch Productions is an American studio, but the team took the necessary steps to make Ghost of Tsushima respectful of the Japanese history and culture it was based on. The film adaptation, helmed by Chad Stahelski, must do the same and more to live up to its potential. There are several things the Ghost of Tsushima movie can do to be both a great adaptation and a strong entry in the samurai movie genre.

samurai in A Boy and His Samurai, Tajomaru and woodcutter in Rashomon, Hanshiro in Harakiri
Related
The 7 Most Iconic Samurai Movies

Thanks to these Japanese samurai movies, cinema lovers can be transported back in time and learn about how samurai lived and fought their battles.

5 Things That Would Make Ghost of Tsushima Great

Beautiful Environments Evocative of Tsushima

Sucker Punch Productions' Ghost of Tsushima is one of the most beautiful open-world games ever created. The island of Tsushima is immersive and larger than life, making the space feel worth exploring and protecting. The Ghost of Tsushima film needs to create a similar ambiance. Constant movement in the environment helped to make the game feel alive, like a Kurosawa film, and is a technique that the movie should utilize as well. The game's world is also filled with elegant temples and shrines that lend a sense of majesty to its locations, and the movie would benefit from doing the same.

Make the Ghost of Tsushima Movie in Japanese

After its announcement, the film's director expressed a desire to make Ghost of Tsushima with Japanese actors and to write it in Japanese. It is unconfirmed whether or not he has been able to do so, but making the movie in English would certainly take away from the experience. Ghost of Tsushima is a historical drama, so using the Japanese language would be more immersive.

Samurai cinema has also been predominantly made in Japan, and involving industry veterans with experience in the genre would likely make for a better film. Foreign directors working in Japan's film industry aren't common, but Wim Wenders recently made Perfect Days there, and it is certainly possible.

That said, many players probably did not indulge in Japanese voice lines while playing the game, and therefore it may not be that disagreeable if the movie is in English instead, even if it would make it decidedly less authentic to the setting.

Reference The History of Samurai Cinema

Samurai cinema has a lengthy history in Japan, dating back to the early 1910s. The genre was highly influential on the American film industry, and movies like Star Wars owe a lot of their inspiration to prominent works in the genre. Ghost of Tsushima features a Samurai Cinema Mode endorsed by Akira Kurosawa's estate, and the filmmaker's influence can be seen in the game's use of movement and visual language. The movie would be remiss not to reference his work as well.

Ghost of Tsushima's Great Fight Scenes

Before Stahelski was a film director, he was a stuntperson. The influence of his time in that role can be felt in his later work behind the camera in the John Wick movies. Given the director's pedigree in the action genre, it would be a surprise for Ghost of Tsushima not to feature outstanding combat and action sequences. Jin Sakai's story sees him fight as both a samurai and a ninja, and the game features a great parkour system. Jin is the perfect character to create compelling action scenes around, so Stahelski and his crew should have a lot of freedom to work with.

A Tighter Story Than in Ghost of Tsushima's Game

Ghost of Tsushima has a lengthy runtime due to its wide array of side content and its highly explorable world. The film adaptation will need to be more limited in scope due to the medium's constraints. Because of this, the filmmakers should focus primarily on Jin's transformation into the Ghost to defend his home and the resulting family drama with his uncle.

Narrowing the scope of the story would allow for the narrative to have room to breathe and could let the film flesh out the elements it focuses on more than the game did. Good game adaptations, like HBO's The Last of Us, add something new to a story rather than simply recreating it. The Ghost of Tsushima movie will need to bring something new to the table as well.