movies

Hiro Murai, one of today’s most influential and in demand directors of television and music videos, has found his long-awaited first feature project in Bushido, an original samurai film to be financed by A24, which will produce alongside Square Peg and 2AM.

While plot details are being kept under wraps, Bushido is said to be a high-stakes action film set against the backdrop of feudal Japan.

Murai will direct from a script by Henry Dunham (The Standoff at Sparrow Creek), with the duo to produce alongside Ari Aster and Lars Knudsen for Square Peg, and the 2AM trio of Julia Oh, Christine D’Souza Gelb and David Hinojosa.

The project comes at a time when the samurai story has significant cultural cachet, given the outsized breakout success of FX’s Shōgun, an hour-long drama delving deep into samurai culture and the feudal politics of early 17th-century Japan. The winner of 18 Emmys, that show made history earlier this fall as the first Japanese-language effort to win the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series.