‘Last Samurai Standing’ Review: Netflix’s Action Epic Satisfies

The press notes for Netflix‘s new action drama Last Samurai Standing are careful to mention that the series “has been in development since 2022, a vision that predates even the development of Squid Game.” I assume that’s a typo, since Squid Game premiered on Netflix in 2021. But the exact phrasing and even the actual truth are close to irrelevant.

Whether Last Samurai Standing was put into development before Squid Game became a global sensation and FX’s Shōgun emerged as an awards juggernaut truly doesn’t matter — because every critic and every viewer is going to call the series Squid Game meets Shōgun, a comparison that isn’t an accusation of theft so much as a very, very accurate description of narrative similarity. Under what circumstances is being Squid Game meets Shōgun anything other than a boon?

Heck, it got me to watch and review Last Samurai Standing.

The concern, I guess, is a matter of raised expectations. By couching its story in the late 19th century, Japan’s Meiji era, Last Samurai Standing has the advantage of grounded historical context but the disadvantage of lacking the fodder for the sort of satire that made Squid Game so effective for one season. And while Last Samurai Standing surely received a solid budget from Netflix, it doesn’t have quite the epic sweep that the FX production team could bring to Shōgun.

So what of it? Last Samurai Standing has a catchy premise and enough of that aforementioned sweep, delivering an ample supply of the samurai action that some people — incorrect people — felt was missing from Shōgun. The first five episodes offered enough bloody, ambitious set pieces and character development to keep me generally engaged, with the sixth episode being the first one to come close to blowing me away with samurai clashing, setting things up intriguingly for a second season that, unlike with Squid Game, is probably necessary.

Adapted from a novel by Shogo Imamura, Last Samurai Standing begins 10 years after the Satsuma Rebellion. That nine-month revolt affirmed the status of the rising new imperial government of Japan and stripped the samurai class of rank and privilege, in favor of a modernized approach to the military and security throughout the land.

The first character we meet is Shujiro Saga (Junichi Okada), a once-legendary swordsman suffering from the disenfranchisement of the samurai. Shujiro doesn’t necessarily have a profession, but he has a wife and two kids, which apparently brought him happiness (not that we see much of that happiness). A cholera epidemic sweeps the country, killing Shujiro’s daughter and leaving his wife on the brink of death.

With no way to get his family the medical attention they need, Shujiro responds to a mysterious flyer that has been posted around the country. A martial arts tournament is taking place at a temple in Kyoto, with the promise of an unfathomable cash prize.

Shujiro and 291 other interested participants arrive in Kyoto and they’re told the rules: They are to participate in a game. They’ve each been assigned numbered tags. The goal is to get the tags off of other players by any means necessary. Contestants must reach a certain number of assigned checkpoints on the road to Tokyo with a certain number of tags taken, with force, from rivals.

There’s also a group of oligarchs monitoring the game breathlessly, placing bets on the numbered contestants, fat cats throwing down wads of cash on the desperate likes of Futaba (Yumia Fujisaki), entirely untrained but willing to do anything for an ailing mother; Iroha (Kaya Kiyohara), once a part of a legendary training school and now a sideshow act for a traveling fair; Bukotsu (Hideaki Ito), wild-eyed and eager to get revenge on Shujiro; and Kyojin (Masahiro Higashide), whose tendency to talk of alliances and then disappear for long stretches makes him suspicious.

Each contestant is there because they face some level of economic desperation. They don’t know who’s behind the game, though there’s a lot of talk of an organizer or a mastermind.

See, I wasn’t kidding when I said Squid Game meets Shōgun. That’s just what the show is.

Last Samurai Standing will be an opportunity to test, however, what viewers initially found so irresistible about Squid Game. Was it the lure of shocking death sport or the global relatability of the childhood pastimes, delivered with a fresh gory undercurrent? Definitely Last Samurai Standing has none of the latter. Nobody says, “And now we play hopscotch!” Instead, it’s just a battle royale, not to be confused with the movie Battle Royale, which this is also like.

In addition to starring, Okada is the series’ action choreographer and producer, credited by Netflix with recruiting the directing team led by Michihito Fujii. In the early going, he favors carefully orchestrated bedlam, scenes that expertly maintain the centrality of a couple of recognizable main characters without sacrificing the sense of escalating carnage on all sides.

The first episode, with its dynamic opening in the Boshin War and its climactic melee at the Kyoto temple, sets an immediate high bar when it comes to samurai slicing and dicing. There are eruptions of blood, sudden beheadings and long stretches of cacophonous clashing of metal weaponry. There’s one key immediate death — the lack of early character development had me utterly flummoxed on who did what and why and how — but Fujii generally maintains continuity well, despite thrusting viewers into chaos.

I can’t put a precise finger on how much here is practical stunt work versus computer augmentation, but it’s my sense that there were a lot of real people wielding a lot of real dummy swords and executing a lot of martial art-specific movement with the occasional piece of virtual vivisection, which is impressive. The primary visual trickery comes in the form of slowed or accelerated film stock, rather than obvious digital fudging.

It’s an early embarrassment of riches that the series can’t quite maintain. Subsequent episodes tend to have one major skirmish and one or two little violent conflicts, but the episodes are as much about filling in backstory and pushing characters along on a road trip to Tokyo. Most are enjoyable, almost none are giddily enjoyable in the way that I ideally prefer — at least until the finale, which is almost nonstop action and definitely doesn’t offer resolution.

The character work is less immediately impressive. Shujiro alternates between “miserable” and “determined,” convincing throughout but not creating a meaningful distinction. As the primary action antagonist, Ito chews scenery and operates with plausible physical menace. Higashide is one of the few actors who gets to be playful, and his sense of humor benefits the series.

By virtue of playing characters who are constantly being underestimated and therefore must prove themselves, female leads Fujisaki and Kiyohara have the most dynamic roles and are therefore the most compelling presences. As the inexperienced cub to Shujiro’s lone wolf, Futaba is the show’s most vulnerable character and Fujisaki conveys and earns a lot of the series’ emotion. Kiyohara can’t always do interesting things when Iroha is simmering and resentful, but when the opportunities come for her to display her attitude with a variety of pointy things, it’s wholly satisfying.

The show loses momentum every time it lingers on the four oligarchs, though when you realize who they are and how they fit into the actual historical tapestry, the whole show becomes more interesting. I think viewers with a deeper understanding of the historical moment and who won’t require any explanation of the Big Four Zaibatsu and how they inform the past 150 years of Japanese culture may have a meaningful head start.

Homework might help one find more depth in Last Samurai Standing, but it’s hardly required. This is an action drama with a historical backdrop, not a historical drama with action highlights. It might have taken until a key sword fight amid fireworks for me to fully invest in Last Samurai Standing on its own terms, rather than as a fusion of two buzzy shows I previously enjoyed, but I got there by the end.