Hyper-stylized movies are the new hotness, ever since movies like Sin City and 300 showed how it could be done. But now The Cup of Tears from director Gary Shore puts all of that to shame. This has to be one of the most gorgeous fucking movies I've seen in recent years, and it's got samurai in space. Fucking samurai science fiction.

The official synopsis: "The narrative follows a scorned geisha who creates a magical cup made of tears that causes any man who drinks from it to fall under a stasis of permanent sleep. One night the cup is stolen, setting off a chain of events that threatens civil war amongst the clans. Taro, a once gifted samurai, and his companion Jin set out to find the cup and the one who can break the spell before inner turmoil."

Whatever. Samurai in space. And before anyone bitches about green screen movies-- fuck you, it's one particular technique to acheive certain visual styles, usually those that are completely not possible with just standard foam props and fishing line. Would you complain about a painting because it's painted and not real? I love the jaw-dropping visual effects that can come out of a green screen film. It's not for everything, but for certain things, it's perfect. And in this case, it allowed the vision of one guy with a single Red camera to make something absolutely spectacular that puts most huge budget Hollywood productions to shame.

Rant over. The Cup of Tears doesn't have a release date yet, but it'll probably be sometime next year.

Via: io9