TOKYO — TOKYO (AP) — “Final Samurai Standing,” a Netflix sequence launching on Thursday, is about in a Japan the place the feudal samurai period is about to finish.

The hero, Saga Kokushu, performed by Junichi Okada, is certainly one of dozens of samurai in a live-or-die survival recreation to save lots of household, neighborhood and honor. Members obtain picket tags to put on and add one other for every rival they kill. The final man standing collects 100 billion yen ($650 million).

Directed by Michihito Fujii, whose credit embrace “The Journalist,” a couple of fearless reporter, and “A Household,” depicting yakuza gangsters, the sequence pays homage to modern-day video video games in addition to the legacy of Japanese filmmakers like Akira Kurosawa and the unique “The Final Samurai.”

That 2003 movie, directed by Edward Zwick, starred Tom Cruise because the samurai hero. It was a giant hit, together with in Japan, and it helped Japan’s personal stars like Ken Watanabe and Hiroyuki Sanada of their Hollywood careers.

“The aim we had in thoughts was to replace the jidaigeki,” stated Okada, utilizing the Japanese time period for the samurai drama style.

Okada, who additionally served as choreographer and producer in “Final Samurai Standing,” stated all people in Japanese movie knew a lot concerning the greats who had preceded them, like Kurosawa. The style even got here with a grandiose “textbook” concerning the correct portrayal of Japanese tradition.

“We took the want-to strategy, conserving in thoughts that, whereas completely learning jidaigeki, we had been going to do what we wish to make, and make one thing that appeared completely cool,” Okada advised The Related Press.

Okada is a black belt in Brazilian jujitsu. He has starred in numerous movies together with “The Everlasting Zero,” about World Warfare II Zero pilots, directed by Takashi Yamazaki, of “Godzilla Minus One.”

Okada beforehand labored with director Fujii in “Onerous Days,” a 2023 movie a couple of police officer who tries to cowl up a hit-and-run. Okada handpicked Fujii for “Final Samurai Standing.”

“We needed one thing extra emotional, with extra of a narrative, and extra depth in character portrayal, extra of an outline of tradition. That’s what I saved in thoughts,” Okada stated.

There’s additionally loads of blood and gore, with swords spitting sparks and flying severed heads. Each individual, even in crowded battle scenes, is human and never computer-generated.

In a single scene the place swordsmen’s our bodies catch on hearth, the actors wore fireproof gear and risked burns, Okada stated.

What saves the work from being a numbing sequence of motion scenes is its story line, with the common theme of being caught in a ruthless world in transition.

The ladies characters, together with newcomer Yumia Fujisaki, really feel extra fashionable than the stereotypes who are likely to populate older samurai works.

The forged additionally contains “Himizu” and “Parasyte” star Shota Sometani, Kazunari Ninomiya, memorable in Clint Eastwood’s “Letters from Iwo Jima,” and Takayuki Yamada, who has acted in numerous movies and TV exhibits together with “The Bare Director” on Netflix.

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Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@yurikageyama