This is from AintItCool, which has been cooler in the past two months than it has been in the last four years. There’s going to be an Onimusha movie.
Why is this significant? It’s probably going to be about Japanese samurai and Jean Reno fighting demons from Hell in modern day France, that’s why.
The Onimusha series is one of the only mature Japanese game franchises that I hold dear to my heart, and except for the quick, money making spin offs, they are excellent examples of how to do a proper hack and slash horror game. These games were the first I ever had to show an ID for proving that my awkwardly placed splotches of facial hair were genuinely there not because I had just entered puberty, but because I was exiting it in a very ugly manner. This was a fact that I found astounding and exciting, like the way men used to feel buying their first Playboy, back in the days before every titty in the world was posted online for free.
The director is oedepodean Frenchman Christopher Gannes, the director of Silent Hill. I support Gannes, as he gave work to Sean Bean, my favorite Bond villain of all time. However, Silent Hill was really awkward with its direction. It couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be an American suspense film, a Japanese horror game or a French artsy crap thing, but I still think it stands up as an okay movie in the end. Adding the stink of hairy pitted French cinema to the Onimusha series might actually be a good idea, just as doing so injected a shot of adrenaline into the classic foot chase scene.
It will be very interesting to the Japanese audience which actor they decide to headline the film, as the series stars real Japanese actors. The first and second Onimusha game starred a Japanese actor who died before the first game was complete, while a younger actor took the reigns over in the second game as an alternative character. Starting fresh with a new face could make no difference to the western audience, but Japanese gamers are fiercely loyal to the original stars of the series. Replacing either of them would be like replacing Harrison Ford with David Boreanaz as Indiana Jones. Personally, I don’t care. They could throw Jackie Chan into some dragon scale and as long as he was hacking up the infernally damned souls of dishonored ninjas for two hours, they’d get my eight dollars for the movie ticket.
Current status: Cautiously optimistic!