Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A throng of impoverished, disenfranchised, and desperate people join a game conceived by a mysterious orchestrator. As VIPs watch, they compete in a deadly contest to win a life-changing cash prize. Yet, one man’s rejection of the rules will help shine a light on the corruption among the country’s elite.
That’s right, this is the basic plot of Netflix’s new Japanese drama, Last Samurai Standing. Which, among a lengthening line of Netflix’s attempts to recapture the success of Squid Game’s first season, is probably the most shameless. Yet, it also stands the best chance to turn heads in the same way though, ironically, not for being so obvious a facsimile of the South Korean juggernaut.
What Is Last Samurai Standing?
Rather than the deadbeat dad of Squid Game, the focus in Last Samurai Standing is on samurai Shujiro Sada (Jun’ichi Okada, who also serves as producer and action coordinator), whom we meet cowering from a brutal cannonade at the Battle of Toba-Fushima in 1868. The barrage not only signals the end of the Boshin War, but also the end of samurai, as the impending rapid modernization of the Meiji Restoration will render them obsolete.
Fast-forward a decade and Shujiro is a father of two battling poverty, PTSD, and a cholera epidemic—the latter of which quickly kills his daughter, and leaves his wife and village on the brink of disaster. Overcome by desperation, he discovers a flyer advertising a 100,000 yen prize for the winner of a martial arts tournament in Kyoto.
Junichi Okada, Yumia Fujisaki, Kaya Kiyohara, and Masahiro Higashide. Chihoko Ishii/Netflix
Leaving his son in charge, Shujiro sets out to claim the prize for this village, only to find himself crowded in the temple square of Tenryu-ji with 291 other samurai. They have entered the Kodoku: a contest to reach Tokyo. To do so, they must accrue enough points to pass checkpoints along the road—points awarded for claiming wooden tags that now dangle from contestants’ necks.
The courtyard erupts into bloody violence and gunshots as the game commences. Shujiro, who has been unable to draw his sword since the cannonade, freezes—rattling with the trauma of Toba-Fushima.
So far, so Squid Game. Though, that last point signals the greater depths Last Samurai Standing will attempt to plumb while tracing the basic narrative beats of Squid Game.
The Desperate Search for “The Next Squid Game”
Since Squid Game proved so unlikely a success in 2021, Netflix has gone all-in on trying to recapture its popularity. First, by wringing the series for all its worth with unnecessary sequel seasons, a half-baked reality series, a low-quality mobile game, and a purported English-language remake—so far.
Chihoko Ishii/Netflix
The streamer has also invested heavily in South Korean TV, creating a production line of dark, absurdly-premised thrillers—known as makjang—in the mold of Squid Game. Though this endeavor enjoyed early success with shows like Little Women and The Glory, audiences have steadily become weary of the homogeonized and often rushed mill of recent streaming K-dramas. Last Samurai Standing feels like a last throw of the dice: trying to recreate Squid Game’s success simply by recreating Squid Game, albeit in 19th century Japan this time.
With a relatively clear release schedule and unusually robust global marketing campaign for a non-English series, Netflix is certainly setting Last Samurai Standing up for greater success than previous efforts…though, it has stopped short of drawing any comparisons with Squid Game itself.
Those comparisons are inevitable, necessary even, and may well be enough for many viewers. But Last Samurai Standing is better placed than many series that have been branded “the next Squid Game”—often just for being east-Asian—in that it is simply better than Squid Game.
Why Last Samurai Standing Exceeds Squid Game
This becomes apparent in the same temple square where we are introduced to the rest of the cast: the mysterious uniformed organizers; the savage Bokutso Kanjiya (Hideaki Itô); Gentosai Okabe (Hiroshi Abe), who is an almost supernatural swordsman; and Iroha Kinugasa (Kaya Kiyohara), a specter from Shujiro’s past.
Most important of all, we meet Futaba Katsuki (Yumia Fujisaki), a defenseless teenager who, like Shujiro, is here to find aid for her cholera-stricken village. Though he shudders with PTSD, Shujiro finds the impetus to move as he watches swordsmen rush towards Futaba, a girl who reminds him keenly of his own daughter.
Junichi Okada. Chihoko Ishii/Netflix
By himself, Shujiro isn’t much more compelling than Squid Game’s Gi-hoon (Lee Jung-jae). But, old hat as it might be, the father-daughter dynamic that develops between him and Futaba gives Last Samurai Standing a beating heart that Squid Game never had—and not just because it actually has women in it.
With the implications of such a deadly competition hovering over them—in which, mathematically, only nine contestants can potentially reach the end—and questions over whether Shujiro would kill Futaba to reach his own goal abound, there’s captivating moral drama underneath the Kodoku. Despite her lack of skill with a blade, Futaba consistently exerts the most profound impact as her sense of justice and fairness butt up against the savagery on show, including Shujiro’s as he rediscovers his groove as a “manslayer.” All of this leads to their attempts to discover the secrets of the Kodoku and its organizers.
This works in concert with the change in scenery, both historical and geographical. In placing Squid Game’s framework within the methodical eradication of the samurai, we are granted a tableau that feels far more human than Squid Game’s unsubtle—and often tepid—anti-capitalism. The bleak vibe of the series that may be its inspiration is constantly offset in Last Samurai Standing by the sumptuous visuals of the Tōkaidō Route on which Shujiro and Futaba travel.
Whether it’s the two main characters racing through a misty forest with arrows whistling overhead, Okada’s kinetic duels between contestants, or a pause in the carnage for Futaba to ritualistically dance beside a flooded torii, Last Samurai Standing has a sense of beauty, energy, and hope that Squid Game never managed to attain.
Last Samurai Standing is a series that, by and large, cuts through the dour plot of Squid Game towards something more hopeful, more human, and most importantly: a lot more fun.
