In the world of martial arts action, there are few stunt directors like Kensuke Sonomura. Over the last 20 years, he’s worked on 12 prior projects as part of the stunt crew. Out of those, he was the editor for three, actor in four, producer for one, and, with Ghost Killer, director for three. With each subsequent project, his action gets even more impressive, resulting in his association becoming a draw for a project. Likewise, with each project he’s helmed, not only does the action draw you in, but each story grows more compelling than the last, using familiar mysterious worlds to create opportunities for dazzling mayhem. Coming off of his second feature, 2022’s Bad City, and recent work with the Baby Assassins series, Sonomura offers a supernatural action dramedy written by his Baby Assassins collaborator/creator Yûgo Sakamoto and starring actors/collaborators Akari Takaishi (Baby Assassins series) and Masanori Mimoto (HYDRA; Bad City; Baby Assassins) in the form of Ghost Killer. Having its world premiere at Fantastic Fest 2024, Ghost Killer is as strange and unusual in concept as it is delightfully hilarious in execution, brought to life by a skilled team whose unique talents congeal into one of the most ingenious, action-packed revenge tales of 2024. You don’t have to see it to believe it, but it will take hold of you.
College student Fumika Matsuoka (Akari Takaishi) is interested in one thing: networking to get herself lined up with a job post-grad, ideally in the entertainment industry. Her priorities change, however, when she finds herself being followed by the ghost of a recently-deceased hitman, Hideo Kudo (Masanori Mimoto), and priority #1 becomes exorcising him. One problem: to do that, they think she must remove the grudge that holds him and that means going after the person responsible for his death. Fumika is way over her head, but with a little ghostly possession, she’ll give Kudo a second chance at justice and herself the opportunity to let off some steam.
With the general premise of dead hitman possesses college girl to exact revenge, one wouldn’t think that the film would be as much fun as it is nor as layered, but that’s due to the way that Sakamoto’s script dovetails its ideas together. As an audience, we’re introduced to Kudo first, already in the middle of a fight, fist flying, feet swirling, bodies pushing against each other as they vie for position as those with knives aim to draw blood. It ends as it must before shifting to Fumika working a different kind of hellish experience waiting tables. Through the first intro, we are given a taste of Kudo’s skills, the feats of athleticism still to come, and a sense of foreboding inevitability; whereas, through the second, we find someone still fresh who is unevenly burdened by a world that would crush her if she allowed it. One’s a fighter, the other pent-up in need of release: a natural combination for a forced reliance that will inevitably require both to step outside of their comfort zone in order to achieve their goals. Of course, much of the comedy comes in the fish-out-of-water circumstances (i.e., fisticuffs and bloodletting) Fumika finds herself in as she’s the normie in the world of killers, but that’s as much due to Takaishi’s performance in these sequences as it is the circumstances. For those familiar with her character Chisato Sugimoto in the Baby Assassin series, Chisato is a capable fighter who typically relies on guns and can go from bubbly/friendly personality to murderous sociopath in literal seconds. This makes Takaishi perfectly suited to play Fumika and Fumika-possessed-by-Kudo as this means changing her facial expressions, vocal delivery, and even physical positioning depending on who’s talking, even in conversation mid-fight. Their bickering adds levity to the stressful situations they find themselves in, most of which is only achieved due to Takaishi’s talent for physical comedy and performance. However, this only goes so far, requiring the narrative to give the audience stakes they can cling to which, in this instance, is the exorcising of Kudo’s spirit to remove the bond from Fumika and her learning how to release what’s pent up within her so as not to be a doormat for others.
Akari Takaishi as Fumika Matsuoka in GHOST KILLER. Photo courtesy of Fantastic Fest.
Now, if you’re of a certain age and cinematic awareness, there’s going to be more than one moment in which you’ll utter a variance on Oda Mae Brown’s (Whoopi Goldberg) “You’re in danger, girl” from Ghost (1990). It’s not just because she’s in over her head as a college student suddenly thrown an underground world of killers, but because the script routinely places Fumika in reasonable, normal situations that women may face. Any person with training can be a killer, but it takes a certain kind of bastard to think that they’re allowed to be one by virtue of their gender presentation. In the first two action sequences in which Fumika and Kudo establish their tenuous relationship, Sakamoto places Fumika to confront elements of her life that she might approach differently, with more timidity, without Kudo as backup. This, of course, raises a lot of gruesome questions regarding the way men view women they perceive as vulnerable and this script doesn’t spend any significant time dwelling on it (not the type of story it is), but Ghost Killer doesn’t avoid it either. This results in a deepening of their collective relationship, a necessity in order for Fumika to delve to a depth in Kudo’s past from which she might not ever recover.
Their relationship is the cornerstone for the film and while Takaishi can certainly handle herself in the action sequences (see: the Baby Assassins series), the presentation of Kudo matters just as much. To that end, the direction and editing help solidify that it’s Kudo in control of Fumika’s body during the action and never fails to remind us how capable Mimoto is. To that end, Sonomura requires a specific kind of physical contact to be made in order for possession to occur (smart way to incorporate consent and give Fumika a bit more agency than other supernatural action comedies might), employing a brief and recurring motif of the screen going dark to indicate possession, and even utilizing natural surroundings to force a shift in audience perspective so that we see Mimoto as Kudo fighting rather than Takaishi’s Fumika. This perspective shift is not only a smart visual element that affords opportunities for each actor to highlight their skills on screen, it also serves to raise the stakes of Kudo’s mission for exorcism. Fumika is a vessel controlled by Kudo’s spirit, therefore, seeing Takaishi as Fumika fight the one responsible doesn’t offer the emotional satisfaction that observing Mimoto as Kudo does.
With his first two features, Sonomura demonstrated a gift for visual storytelling to go along with his talents for action. With Ghost Killer, the third time’s the charm as it all comes together (narrative, performance, action, and themes) to produce a powerhouse adventure that satisfies from start to finish. Having worked together across many years and many projects, the collaboration of the talent on screen and off is this film’s secret sauce. Everything blends together so smoothly that humor and heart, hilarity and horror are given in equal measure, to the point where Ghost Killer is more dark comedy than dramedy. But that’s an exploration for a more spoiler-filled review and, seeing as Well Go USA has picked up the U.S. release, you can count on one coming in the future (fingers-crossed for 2025). Until then, catch Ghost Killer while and where you can.
Screening during Fantastic Fest 2024.
Available on digital July 22nd, 2025.
Available on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD September 23rd, 2025.
For more information, head to the official Fantastic Fest 2024 Ghost Killer webpage.
Final Score: 4.5 out of 5.
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Categories: Films To Watch, In Theaters, Recommendation, Reviews
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