Jerry O’Flaherty’s samurai maneuver

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Every week, it seems, comes another cool/interesting short in Hollywood, usually as the project begins to make the rounds to studios. The latest to go viral is this film, from video game director Jerry O’Flaherty (he’s the art director responsible for the sophisticated look of “Gears of War”). Unlike some of the other shorts, which were made on a lark and then were developed into features, O’Flaherty made this film as a sort of teaser for a project he’s about to shop.

There’s not a lot of narrative, but it still has style to burn, a kind of high-octane, sleekly produced samurai picture (made, apparently, for a very small budget). And it already has a solid writer on board, “Number 23” scribe Fernley Phillips, as well as veteran producers State Street and Blacklight Entertainment. Check it out and let us know what you think. Shorts-into-features is starting to become a rather persistent trend in Hollywood, but hey, at least they’re not remakes. SAMURAI from Jerry O’Flaherty on Vimeo.

--Steven Zeitchik Twitter.com/ZeitchikLAT