Last Samurai Standing

It's an entertaining mesh of "Squid Games", "Battle Royale", "Hunger Games", and a handful of other ideas rolled into some neat historical fiction.

If anything, I'll be curious to see what the consensus is regarding the English dub and Netflix's use of AI deepfake technology for the characters' mouths.

The scenes really bring to mind those 1970s Japanese movies - like Kurosawa's 12 Samurai - while also giving a slight nod to The Last Samurai with Tom Cruise. Yet despite these influences, it still feels like an original version of what it is meant to be. The acting is good, the framing is excellent, and the action is engaging.

Its only weaknesses are the lack of depth in some of the characters, and that the story logic is weak in a few places, sacrificed for the sake of making the plot more appealing. Considering its budget and the production team and actors, I think it is even better than Shogun, and it feels like a fully Japanese and very likable work.

Last Samurai Standing is one of the better action series I've seen this year and I'm not being hyperbolic. It takes place in the late 1800's where 292 samurai warriors get together for a battle royale for 100 billion yen. Every fighter gets a wooden tag and it's their job to get the others tags by any means necessary. The last survivor reaching Tokyo wins. This show was so good that I binged through all 6 episodes in one day. I really hope they make several more seasons of this.

Although this show plays to several tropes that could be better served.

The trope of a tired broken down soldier is beyond old... Do something different. The other trope is the one of the hopeless little girl who need saving, this is monumentally irritating as it sets up somebody who's going to sacrifice himself for the monumentally inept person.

Otherwise I do enjoy all the scenes. I just wish they wouldn't use some of the old tropes.

I was not expecting Last Samurai Standing to be nearly as good as it was. I was expecting some cheesy action show where I can just turn my brain off and enjoy it. It's much more than that. It's a mix of Shogun, Battle Royale & Squid Game. The only negative is it's only six episodes long. There are plenty of characters and backstories that would've benefited from a longer season. Every episode has enough action and drama to entertain just about any action fan.