2017's Netflix hit Bright brought fairies, orcs, wands, and other fantasy elements into the heart of modern Los Angeles and set up a world and mythos that had a lot of potential for expansion. Kyohei Ishiguro's prequel spin-off Bright: Samurai Soul does exactly that, giving the Bright franchise an anime makeover, and taking it a long way from the contemporary Western setting of the first movie.
Set during the early days of Japan's Edo period, Bright: Samurai Soul focuses on one-eyed samurai Izo (voiced by Yuki Nomura in Japanese, and Shang-Chi star Simu Liu in English), who teams up with an orc named Raiden (Daisuke Irikawa in Japanese, Fred Mancuso in English). They forces to escort an elf named Sonya (Shion Wakayama in Japanese, Yuzu Harada in English) to the elves of the north. Bringing together Western fairy tale elements with anime and Japanese history, Bright: Samurai Soul also builds heavily on the world and lore first established in the 2017 movie.
Screen Rant spoke to Kyohei Ishiguro on the beginnings of Bright: Samurai Soul, the process of directing the film, and what other territory he'd like to explore in the Bright franchise.
Screen Rant: How did Bright: Samurai Soul come about?
Kyohei Ishiguro: The original idea came from Netflix Japan. They decided to make a spin-off of Bright, and they hired the studio Arect. When they came to me, they had very few ideas about what it was going to be. It was going to be based on the movie with Will Smith and the setting would be in Japan at the end of the Edo period and the beginning of the Meiji period, and Michiko Yokote was writing. But when I got involved, it was still a skeleton.
With the movie being a spin-off from Bright in the same world, did the movie's director David Ayer consult at all on the making of Samurai Soul?
Kyohei Ishiguro: Actually, David and his team gave us a very large degree of freedom. I didn't consult too much, but I asked some questions in certain aspects, such as the concepts of the power of wands and the Dark Lord to completely understand the world and concepts. Based on that, I decided which aspects to focus on. The U.S. team really gave us a lot of freedom, which I appreciated very much.
Starting off with the world established in Bright, which has many fairy tale elements, what can you share about the process of bringing that into a setting like the time of the Samurai?
Kyohei Ishiguro: It was actually very difficult, because fairies and nymphs do not exist in Japanese culture. It's a very Western concept, in Japan we have ghosts and things like that, but not fairies. I just had to try combining the Western concept of fairies with Japanese places and backgrounds.
How else would you say Bright: Samurai Soul is different from the Bright movie?
Kyohei Ishiguro: I think the biggest difference from the original is the storyline. The original is set in contemporary times, and Samurai Soul is based in Japanese culture and the history of Japan. During the end of the Edo era and the beginning of the Meiji era, the feudal government had accepted defeat to the contemporary government and had released the Edo castle without bloodshed, so the story of Samurai Soul is based around that.
With Bright set in a modern urban setting, Samurai Soul being in the past of the Samurai, and Bright 2 in the works, is the Bright universe a world you'd like to continue exploring, and where else would you want to take it?
Kyohei Ishiguro: Well, there's only so much we can decide to do at the moment, since we just worked on the spin-off. But as Samurai Soul is based in Japanese culture, personally I'd like to take it to older ages of Japan, like the Sengoku period, which is the Civil War period in Japan. In those days, there were a lot of ninjas, and I'd be intrigued in depicting some of the ninjas in Bright.
Bright: Samurai Soul arrives on Netflix on Tuesday, October 12.
