Hiro Murai, the acclaimed director behind landmark episodes ofAtlantaandBarry, is making the jump to the big screen. He is set to direct a new samurai movie forA24.Deadline reportsthat the film is titledBushido.
Plot details for the film are being kept under wraps for the time being, but it is said to be a “high-stakes action film set aginst the backdrop of medieval Japan”. Bushido translates to “way of the warrior” in Japanese; it is the blanket term for the samurai code of honor and way of life. Samurai are in the zeitgeist right now after the explosive success of FX’s long-in-the-works adaptation ofJames Clavell’sShogun; that series won universal critical acclaim and was renewed for multiple new seasons, despite adapting the entirety of Clavell’s novel. The samurai film is also a staple of Japanese cinema;Akira Kurosawa, the director ofRashomon,Seven Samurai, andRan, is the most internationally recognized practitioner of the form.
Who Is Hiro Murai?
Murai got his start directing music videos for musicians likeThe Fray,Usher, andSt. Vincent. In 2013 he directed the short filmClapping for the Wrong ReasonsforDonald Glover, starting what would become a fruitful partnership. He served as an executive producer on Glover’s seriesAtlanta, in addition to directing 26 episodes. He also directed the musical filmGuava Islandfor Glover in 2019, and helmed the first two episodes of his Prime Video seriesMr. and Mrs. Smith. Murai has also directed episodes ofLegion,Snowfall,Barry, andStation Eleven. He is also an executive producer onThe Bear. Murai’s work has earned him six Emmy nominations and one win for his work onThe Bear; he also won Grammy and MTV Video Music Awards for directing Glover’s 2018 music video “This Is America”. In a2022 examination of Murai’s career, Collider’sMatt Shorepraised the cinematic nature of his TV work, noting that “his love of high-contrast visuals, gallows humor, and evocative camera movement elevate any script to a whole new level”, and spotlighting his directorial trademarks, including “aerial shots, smooth camera movement, and auditory crescendos that amp up a sequence’s tension”.
Bushido’s script will be written byHenry Dunham(The Standoff at Sparrow Creek). Murai and Dunham will also produce alongsideAri AsterandLars Knudsenfor Square Peg, andJulia Oh,Christine D’Souza Gelb, andDavid Hinojosafor 2AM.
Bushidois in development;no release date has yet been announced. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.
