If you’ve ever had a day at work where you thought, “Man, this place is really killing me!”, then spare a thought for the poor souls in Karōshi, the new samurai action-thriller from writer-director Takashi Doscher, producer and genre legend Chad Stahelski, and 87Eleven, the guys responsible for John Wick‘s kick-ass ass-kicking. Starring Teo Yoo (Past Lives), Isabel May (Scream 7), and Cynthia Erivo to name but a few, Karōshi — which literally means ‘death from overwork’ — is set in a near-future Manhattan where a worker’s apparent suicide inspires an outsider (Yoo) to infiltrate their workplace and exact bloody vengeance. Check out the bloody first trailer below;
Bloodspatter, blades, brollies, and a conspiracy that quite literally goes all the way to the top of a megacorporation’s high-rise office block seemingly governed by all manner of secret codes and shadowy individuals? Yeah, we’re thinkin’ the spirit of John Wick is back — only this time with a never-more-resonant anti-corporation sentiment and extra lashings of samurai shenanigans. And right at the heart of it all we’ve got the star of our best movie of 2023 and the breakout young lead of Scream 7 seemingly joining forces to take down aforementioned megacorp Ikigai’s CEO, Vincent Ogawa (Shōgun‘s Takehiro Hira). Oh! And Giancarlo Esposito and Cynthia Erivo are there, too, looking especially cool (and potentially lethal). What more could you ask for?
The official synopsis for Karōshi — which also stars Show Kasamatsu and Bill Camp — reads: “Karōshi is an action-thriller set in a near-future Manhattan, where corporate loyalty and cultural tradition have reshaped everyday life. When a mysterious outsider infiltrates a powerful company after a worker’s death, he exposes the violent system hidden beneath its polished surface.”
What exactly is going on at Ikigai? Will Teo Yoo’s hero, aptly called Hiro, succeed in his quest for vengeance? And can we get one of those really snazzy looking umbrellas? We’ll get the answer to at least some of those questions when we clock in for Karōshi on February 5, 2027.
