Back in the day, before Frank Miller had his way with Batman with the Dark Knight Returns, Frank created a graphic novel series in the early 80′s called “Ronin”. Ronin recounts the cinematic story of a master-less Samurai, or Ronin, that seeks the death of his master’s killer, a demon called Agat. To kill the demon, the Ronin must use a special sword that can only bring on the Demon killing mojo if it is enriched with the blood of an innocent.
I’ll spare you the spoiler and just say that Ronin and the Demon somehow make their way to future New York, a city once again in the post apocalyptic crapper, to duel again for honor, pride and hot babes.
The cool kids at Collider spoke to the good director, currently filming The Losers, a movie I have not written about as yet. Sylvain had the following to say about how Ronin will shape up creatively.
What’s great and what for me works in the graphic novel, aesthetically-speaking, is the design of Aquarius…the design of New York. …what’s beautiful to me about “Ronin” is the production design and the character design and the colors that are used.
Sylvain (cool name) thinks that a director shouldn’t try so hard to bring a graphic novel so literally to the screen.
It’s very difficult, and it’s not linear, and it doesn’t really fit into a film format off the bat. It’s not a straight adaptation like ‘300′ was or even ‘Watchmen’. It’s not as simple. Zack’s going to kill me. [Laughs] But I think with ‘Ronin’ we need a little bit of streamlining, otherwise it’s too esoteric. You need a little bit of streamlining, but the story and the characters, if I get to do that movie, will all be there.
In this we agree. As for the story of Ronin, it harkens me back to my youth as a young and wild eyed movie goer. I remember how Highlander did sword fights in an urban environment to maximum levels of cool. Ronin feels like that kind of thing. A new draft of the script is imminent, so let’s hope this puppy gets the green light. The graphic novel is crazy good and I highly recommend it. Thanks /film
