In the treacherous frontier city of Samurai Town, a ruthless bank robber (Nicolas Cage) is sprung from jail by wealthy warlord The Governor (Bill Moseley), whose adopted granddaughter Bernice (Sofia Boutella) has gone missing. The Governor offers the prisoner his freedom in exchange for retrieving the runaway.

Strapped into a leather suit that will self-destruct within five days, the bandit sets off on a journey to find the young woman – and his own path to redemption.

Sion Sono’s delirious mash-up of Western, samurai, and postapocalyptic thriller is a sly spoof of the mythical hero’s journey. Cage, in one of his most unhinged performances to date, swaggers through a wasteland populated by fearsome gunslingers, lethal swordsmen, vengeful ghosts, and a deranged desert cult.

Working from a gonzo script by Aaron Hendry and Reza Sixo Safai, Sono orchestrates a large international cast through a kaleidoscope of upended exploitation tropes, balletic fight scenes, and audacious needle drops.

Liberated from genre conventions, Prisoners of the Ghostland seems destined to conquer the midnight movie screens.