Videogame style film Hardcore Henry set to open in Italy

(AGI) Rome, Apr 6 - Italian fans of new generation "shoot everything" videogames such as Call of Duty are keenly awaiting the release of Hardcore Henry, in cinemas from Apr. 13. The film, by Ilya Naishuller with Sharlto Copley, Danila Kozlovsky and Haley Bennett, was recorded using a revolutionary first-person technique for the first time, and is a cross between a film, a videogame and a rock concert. Or perhaps a combination of a Tarantino-style splatter film and a videogame. Director and screenwriter Ilya Naishuller, 32, is the frontman for the punk band Biting Elbows. He first came to prominence in 2013 with his video Bad Motherfucker, in which he first trialled the technique used in Hardcore Henry. In the extremely violent videoclip (which has had 120 million views), as in the film, the public sees the world through the eyes of the protagonist, from a first person perspective, killing dozens of enemies - as in "shoot everything" videogames. Mr Naishuller's revolutionary and pulp fiction video caught the imagination of Timur Bekmambetov, the Kazakh producer-director now living in Hollywood. Mr Bekmambetov, who directed the new Ben Hur movie, suggested making the film employing that technique and style. Filmed almost entirely with GoPro action cameras and equipment created ad hoc, Hardcore Henry leaves cinematography far behind, almost eviscerating it, in favour of a raw and immediate experience. This enables viewers to become as one with Henry, the lead, making a very personal and innovative journey along with him. Mr Naishuller said action cinema had always done well when it made viewers feel they were taking part in the sort of dangerous situations that most people would avoid in real life. The story, which could have been written for a new edition of Call of Duty, is simple. A man wakes up in a sort of bath of physiological solution. He remembers nothing and can no longer speak, but soon realises that he has become a bionic weapon and finds himself having to kill everyone else to survive. He appears to be brought back to life by the woman who claims to be his wife, Haley Bennet, who tells him his name is Henry. After he has been awake for five minutes, he is attacked and his wife kidnapped by the ferocious Akan, played by Danila Kozlovsky. He is a crazy character leading a group of mercenaries, who has a plan for world domination. After an adventurous escape and a large number of killings, Henry finds himself in Moscow, a city he does not know but which is full of people trying to kill him. Everybody, that is, apart from a mysterious English ally called Jimmy, played by Sharlto Copley. It is likely that he is on Henry's side, but not definite. Henry has to overcome madness, kill his enemies and solve the mystery in order to find out who he really is. (AGI). .