Ghost of Tsushima film adaptation will be "in Japanese"

Ghost of Tsushima: Iki Island — (Image credit: Sucker Punch)

The director bringing Ghost of Tsushima to the big screen says the movie will be "a complete Japanese cast, in Japanese".

In an interview with Collider, Chad Stahelski further confirmed that Sony is "on board" with his plan to create an authentic Japanese experience that will be "visually stunning" and celebrate his "love of the country, love of the people, love of the language".

"Honestly, it's probably the same things that would scare the shit out of most people," Stahelski said. "It's a fantasy period piece. It's done with reverence to Akira Kurosawa, who's probably in the top five biggest influences of my life as far as film goes.

"It's a chance to push technology and people in a story that's timeless. It's your typical mythological story of good versus evil, finding a man, watching him change the world or the world changes him. It's all the Joseph Campbell stuff that you'd love in a story. You put that in with, obviously, so I'm told I have a bit of a Samurai fetish, which is probably true from Manga and anime and stuff.

"So, I think if we did this right, it would be visually stunning," Stahelski added. "It's character driven. It's got an opportunity for great action, great looks. And honestly, we'd to try to do it, all in character. Meaning, it's a Japanese thing about the Mongols invading Tsushima island.

"A complete Japanese cast, in Japanese. Sony is so on board with backing us on that. I've been going to Japan since I was 16.

"I have a love of the country, love of the people, love of the language," he explained. "To try to direct not only in my language, but someone else's and culturally shift my mindset to bring apart that in a cool way that still entices a Western audience."

Sucker Punch recently celebrated the anniversary of Ghost of Tsushima by revealing a host of tasty stats and tidbits about the game, including confirmation that in the two years since it launched, it has sold almost 10 million copies, we've taken a staggering 78 million photos - that's an average of 3.2 million photos a month - and visited almost 95 million Onsen.

That said, the news isn't so good for fans of Sucker Punch's other franchises like Sly Cooper and Infamous, as in that same blog post the studio did confirm that it had "no plans" for new games in those series as it continues to focus on its current project... which may or may not be a sequel to Ghost of Tsushima.

Here's our roundup of all the upcoming video game movies.