Megan Thee Stallion channels Kurosawa in new “Mamushi” video

Megan Thee Stallion is tapping back into her love of storytelling and cinema for her latest video, “Mamushi.” After releasing the digitally-inspired “Boa” earlier this summer, which spun a tale that lived somewhere in the intersection of Ready Player One and Jumanji, Megan has clearly set her sights on a new genre this time around.

Filmed on location in Japan’s Tsurumaki Onsen Jinya and Engaku-ji Temple, the video—especially its last scene featuring an army of blue-faced phantom soldiers—takes its cues from Akira Kurosawa’s 1990 film Dreams. (That’s the one that stars Martin Scorsese as Vincent Van Gogh, by the way. It’s awesome.) In the lead-up to that pretty stunning final vista, the video sees Megan transform into a venomous mamushi viper to kill the men she’s lured into a swanky bathhouse, where she’ll eventually revive their souls to fight for her. It also stars Shô Kasamatsu, an actor known for his roles in series like Tokyo Vice and Gannibal, and Yuki Chiba, the Japanese rapper who has a featured verse on the song. The video was directed by Kevin “Onda” Leyva and produced by Tokyo-based company Push Japan.

“Mamushi” became a surprise breakout hit from the artist’s June release, MEGAN, after—what else is it ever these days—a TikTok dance to the catchy English and Japanese track went viral. This is a slightly more interesting case than the usual, however. The dance, created by TikTok user @mona712_official found its way through the masses and all the way back to Megan herself, who incorporated it into a segment of this video and a recent live performance in London with Yuki Chiba. She even did the dance ahead of her performance at Kamala Harris’ first campaign rally in Atlanta late last month. Brat Summer may have captured the masses this year, but Megan isn’t going to let people forget the creator of the original Hot Girl Summer that easily.