Billed as Netflix Japan‘s tentpole title for the year, Last Samurai Standing is set in 1878 Japan, and assembles 292 fallen samurais for a survival game, where the last competitor standing gets to claim a 100 billion yen (nearly $656M) prize.
Japan’s Junichi Okada, formerly of boyband V6, stars as the lead actor in the series, while also juggling producer and action choreographer duties.
Alongside Okada, writer-director Michihito Fujii (The Journalist, Faceless) helms the series. Both worked together on the film, Hard Days, in 2023.
Okada was initially approached by Netflix to produce a series together — one that would involve “updating” the period piece for contemporary tastes. Okada agreed, on the condition that he could choose some of the people he would work with, including peers like Fujii.
Fujii added that he and Okada admired the late legendary Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa (Rashomon, Seven Samurai) and wanted to pay homage to his works, through Last Samurai Standing.
He also acknowledged that 2024 series Shogun has also cultivated global interest in samurais and Japanese history, and he is excited for Last Samurai Standing to seize this cultural moment when it premieres on Netflix on November 13.
“I wanted to work together with Fujii-san, paying respect to the culture of the period piece, but at the same time, take on the challenge of updating the period piece. In my forties, this is something that I really want to dedicate my time to,” says Fujii.
Making a period piece for the present
Okada also looks back at his previous singing career in a boyband and says, “There was a song called ‘Made in Japan’ which I debuted to when I was 16. Even when I became an actor, I continue to think that way, wanting to create something that is ‘made in Japan.’”
He links that ambition to what he is currently doing with Last Samurai Standing, and said that he is proud that he can put Japanese culture and history — like the stories of samurais — on the world map.
Adapted from the novel, “Ikusagami,” by Shogo Imamura, Last Samurai Standing picks up in the Meiji period in Japan, in 1878, where the samurais experienced a sharp decline in their status. For centuries, the sword-wielding samurai were the ruling warrior class in Japan’s feudal society, and seen as military elites and cultural icons.
Under Japan’s new modernization laws, samurai were banned from carrying swords and become an increasingly impoverished and forgotten class of a vanished era. A mysterious invitation begins to circulate, and 292 samurai gather at the Tenryu-ji temple for a tournament, in the hopes of winning the massive cash prize.
Fujii was particularly drawn to the story of the samurais’ waning influence in society and said that there are parallels to the present, in how the pandemic and now, AI, have fundamentally changed the importance of some professions. He wanted to ask a question through the series: who are the samurais of today?
Fujii says: “I realized that what can make the story more interesting, even thought it is set in the Meiji period, is for it to be seen as not just a story that took place a long time ago, but for people to see it as their own story, in this current period. I wanted to have the young audience watching this to not see it as something that’s old.”
Looking at the landscape of film, television and streaming, Fujii emphasizes that streaming is a “place to experiment.
“TV dramas have been there before I was born, and film has a long-standing history. The only media that has been created after I was born is the streaming platform,” says Fujii. “What’s most interesting about streaming media is that this is the place to experiment.”
Producing realistic action
Multi-hyphenate Okada said that while he was originally slated to join just as a producer, he was soon asked to lead the action choreography too, given his extensive experience in various martial arts, including jiu-jitsu, jeet kune do and shooto, among others.
“They asked me, you’re also going to be part of this as an actor, right? So I said yes, although I wasn’t so sure if I could do both producing and acting together,” said Okada. “I have done the roles of action choreographer and actor, but not the role of producer, with being a lead actor. But I decided to just jump in and try.”
Okada plays the role of Shujiro Saga, a once-feared legendary assassin who ends up joining the deadly game in the hopes of earning money to save his ailing wife and child.
Hideaki Ito (Umizaru), Kazunari Ninomiya (from J-pop boy group Arashi), actress Kaya Kiyohara (Love is for the Dogs), and Yumia Fujisaki (The Parades) are also part of the cast.
One perk that Okada enjoyed, for wearing so many hats? He could greenlight a lot of his stunts — ones that a producer might have stopped for being too risky or expensive.
“One thing that was positive of doing all three roles, is that even if it’s seen as dangerous and not able to be done, I’m able to get rid of that, as other people do not need to take the responsibility. For example, normally they’ll ask, ‘What about the insurance?’ Nobody can take the responsibility, so these risks tend to get stopped. But if you are the producer, I said, ‘well, Okada wants to do it, so let’s do it’ and we managed to realize many situations.”
Okada adds that they were able to also work with longer takes, as he did most of his own stunt work, drawing from his 20-year-long career in the film industry. He wanted to use as much real action craft on set as possible, and minimize the amount of VFX needed.
“Since I’m the person doing the action and stunts, we can do the long take,” says Okada. “I do have a huge respect for stunt people, but then you have to shoot from the back to hide things.”
Fujii picks out the night-time assembly of 292 samurais in the first episode as the most complex scene that he had to direct.
All of the samurais were real actors — none were created through visual effects.
“For the crew, this was really challenging, and we spent about three weeks to arrange this shoot, in the middle of winter,” says Okada. “To have a rehearsal of 300 people was not possible, so we had an action team of 20 people, and make sure we are in completely alignment in what was going to happen, and then we called the actors. We arranged them in smaller groups, from group, A, B, C, all the way to G, and then we put them into the action scene.
“For example, we would say that group A would have a certain kind of energy, and then the B group would have to cross over. Then the C team would have to fight over here,” adds Okada. “There were a lot of minute calculations, with the people in the background to create such movements.”
Sources of inspiration
Besides Akira Kurosawa, Okada names Shogun star Hiroyuki Sanada as one of his role models, alongside other bandmates he grew up with. His adolescent years were not easy, and he often had questions about his career and identity.
“I didn’t have a father and I wondered what kind of man I wanted to grow up to be,” says Okada. “Through group activities, when I was an idol, I also wondered how my career was going to turn out. I was also the youngest, so I always wondered what I needed to say, for other people to listen to what I wanted to do. But since I started when I was 14, I built up a lot of experience, and I put up a lot of other people as my role models.
“There were many actors that taught me, when I was an idol, and encouraged me to continue,” adds Okada.
Fujii also praises Okada’s “childlike-ness” in the way he thinks creatively.
“Creators need to have a child-like way of thinking and humor, and I was able to find that [in him],” says Okada. “When we completed, we cried. We were a little bit embarrassed, but I think our friendship has really deepened.”
