950 years after the first Samurai appeared in Japan,
their time has come to a brutal end with the dawn of the Meiji Era. Former Samurai warrior, Shujiro Saga, agrees
to join a secret tournament with 292 other participants for the chance of an
enormous cash prize. To get said prize,
Shujiro and his fellow combatants must seize each others wooden tags…by any
means necessary, and make it safely to Tokyo.
For Shujiro, this prize could save his wife, child and entire village
from a deadly illness. But he’ll have to
slice his way through almost 300 desperate and dangerous warriors to see his
wish come true.
The trailers for this new Netflix Series looked cool as
heck from the get go.
I mean if you’re a
fan of the fast paced action of the Rurouni Kenshin films and some possible
slow burn political intrigue featured in FX’s Shogun, then Last Samurai
Standing should be a slam dunk right?
Well after checking out the first episode, not sure I’d go that far but
there’s definitely more than enough of the aforementioned high octane/bloody
action and shadowy mystery that got me locked in.
Is this really the Hunger Games/Battle Royale
with Samurai that the trailers promised?
First off, I’ve gotta say that I love how we can still
get amazing period piece looking works like Last Samurai Standing in 2025.
The sets and locations are so well preserved
that it astounds me they don’t have a time machine to go back to whatever era
they like to film their films and tv series.
Essentially, the same set design that made Rurouni Kenshin stand out and
set the bar for productions like these is being put to amazing use in this
show.
Onto the first episode itself.
Last Samurai Standing isnt just mindless, super
gory Samurai action.
There’s a lot of
carnage in the Premiere, for sure.
But
what’s got my attention more is the chief question at the heart of it: Why the
hell is this secret tournament happening in the first place.
So many thoughts and theories come to mind,
so much so they kind of overshadow the action but there’s still plenty of time
for that to take more of the forefront.
Someone’s clearly got an ax to grind against the forcibly retired
Samurai but why?
And how is this thing
even allowed to take place?
No way the
Meiji Era Government would allow a bunch of killers with swords to run about
unchecked even for someones sick, sadistic pleasure.
There’s more to this than just an excuse to
get a bunch of bad asses together and see who can outlast the whole group…and I’m
all in for finding out some answers.
As for the action, it’s pretty chaotic as one might
expect from pilling almost 300 killers into one reasonably sized courtyard and
saying “Go.”
It is a bit hard to keep
track of everything though the ones who I guess are supposed to be the main
players for the bulk of this show do get a moment to show why they’re going to
go most of the distance and why everyone else is just cannon fodder.
Our main hero, Shujiro, cant bring himself to
draw his sword because of a serious case of PTSD but he can still hold his own with
a sheethed blade, which is impressive.
Besides him, my personal favorite seems to be a crazy old vagabond who
is fast and wicked deadly, with bells following his every move.
Also, cudos to the announcer guy (I haven’t committed
anyones name to memory outside of Shujiro and Futaba yet), he’s quite the
showman and his energy gets you pumped for the carnage about to go down.
Overall, it’s an ok start to what I’m sure Netflix is
hoping will be its own answer to Shogun, but with a lot more action.
Plus I’m sure the Rurouni Kenshin films have
done well for them on the platform too.
Plus, plus, if it isnt obvious enough, this is the Hunger Games and Battle
Royale with a few hundred Samurai.
There’s
gonna be blood, there’s gonna be insanity and there’s hopefully no way Last
Samurai Standing doesn’t deliver on all of its latent potential.
I’m in, let’s do this.
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