Netflix’s new ‘Last Samurai Standing’ pays respect to the original

TOKYO (AP) – “Last Samurai Standing,” a Netflix series launching on Thursday, is set in a Japan where the feudal samurai era is about to end.

The hero, Saga Kokushu, played by Junichi Okada, is one of dozens of samurai in a live-or-die survival game to save family, community and honor. Participants receive wooden tags to wear and add another for each rival they kill. The last man standing collects 100 billion yen ($650 million).

Directed by Michihito Fujii, whose credits include “The Journalist,” about a fearless reporter, and “A Family,” depicting yakuza gangsters, the series pays homage to modern-day video games as well as the legacy of Japanese filmmakers like Akira Kurosawa and the original “The Last Samurai.”

That 2003 film, directed by Edward Zwick, starred Tom Cruise as the samurai hero. It was a big hit, including in Japan, and it helped Japan’s own stars like Ken Watanabe and Hiroyuki Sanada in their Hollywood careers.

“The purpose we had in mind was to update the jidaigeki,” said Okada, using the Japanese term for the samurai drama genre.

Okada, who also served as choreographer and producer in “Last Samurai Standing,” said everybody in Japanese film knew so much about the greats who had preceded them, like Kurosawa. The genre even came with a grandiose “textbook” about the proper portrayal of Japanese culture.

“We took the want-to approach, keeping in mind that, while thoroughly studying jidaigeki, we were going to do what we want to make, and make something that looked absolutely cool,” Okada told The Associated Press.

Okada is a black belt in Brazilian jujitsu. He has starred in various films including “The Eternal Zero,” about World War II Zero pilots, directed by Takashi Yamazaki, of “Godzilla Minus One.”

Okada previously worked with director Fujii in “Hard Days,” a 2023 film about a police officer who tries to cover up a hit-and-run. Okada handpicked Fujii for “Last Samurai Standing.”

“We wanted something more emotional, with more of a story, and more depth in character portrayal, more of a depiction of culture. That’s what I kept in mind,” Okada said.

There’s also plenty of blood and gore, with swords spitting sparks and flying severed heads. Every person, even in crowded battle scenes, is human and not computer-generated.

In one scene where swordsmen’s bodies catch on fire, the actors wore fireproof gear and risked burns, Okada said.

What saves the work from being a numbing series of action scenes is its story line, with the universal theme of being caught in a ruthless world in transition.

The women characters, including newcomer Yumia Fujisaki, feel more modern than the stereotypes who tend to populate older samurai works.

The cast also includes “Himizu” and “Parasyte” star Shota Sometani, Kazunari Ninomiya, memorable in Clint Eastwood’s “Letters from Iwo Jima,” and Takayuki Yamada, who has acted in various films and TV shows including “The Naked Director” on Netflix.