“Shōgun meets Squid Video games.” That’s how Japanese actor, producer and motion choreographer Junichi Okada describes his new Netflix present Final Samurai Standing, that has already grow to be the discuss of social media for its ingenius premise, beautiful costumes and manufacturing design and intense struggle scenes. Critics, too, have been gained over by the live-action adaptation of Shogo Imamura’s 2022 historic fiction novel, Ikusagami, that was additionally tailored into a well-liked manga collection, with the collection having the potential to be the following breakout Asian hit for Netflix.
Set in 1878 Japan, Final Samurai Standing takes place within the post-feudal interval when the few remaining samurai have grow to be personas non grata, with a quickly modernizing Japanese society shunning the as soon as nice warriors, and outlawing their swords. On this environement, 292, principally desparate samurai, are drawn to a mysterious match with the possibility to win 100,000 yen, however first they have to struggle one another and race to Tokyo. Okada performs Shujiro Saga, the noble, however lethal, samurai on the coronary heart of the collection, who should win the prize to avoid wasting his sick spouse and baby.
A feast for style followers, Final Samurai Standing faucets into jidaigeki style, that’s the interval samurai dramas, and likewise has a survival/loss of life recreation construction that’s well-liked for the time being on prime of brutal violence and unimaginable struggle scenes. At the moment, the collection, which was launch final week, sits at an ideal 100% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with a 96 % viewers rating. The Hollywood Reporter‘s reviewer described the present as having “a catchy premise” and that’s delivers “an ample provide of the samurai motion that some folks — incorrect folks — felt was lacking from Shōgun.” The assessment provides, “The primary 5 episodes provided sufficient bloody, formidable set items and character improvement to maintain me typically engaged, with the sixth episode being the primary one to come back near blowing me away with samurai clashing, setting issues up intriguingly for a second season that, in contrast to with Squid Recreation, might be obligatory.”
Final Samurai Standing additionally obtained the all-important, and intensely coveted, Hideo Kojima thumbs up. The legendary recreation developer, recent from a short go to to Hong Kong to announce his new Demise Stranding anime collection, took the outing of his busy schedule to tweet effusively about Netflix’s new interval drama.
Forward of Final Samurai Standing‘s launch on Netflix, THR spoke to Okada concerning the making of the collection, juggling his roles as lead actor, producer and struggle choreographer, his hopes for a second season and the way they could incorporate extra superhuman parts that had been present in Imamura’s supply materials.
Firstly, congratulations on the present! Let’s begin with how you bought concerned with the undertaking.
Nicely, I’ve been engaged on jidaigeki [samurai period dramas], and I had the fortune of having the ability to work on these, epic tasks right here in Japan. Netflix approached me about Final Sumurai Standing. After I obtained the supply, they talked about me being the lead character and so they additionally talked about me being the motion choreographer. So, if I had been to work on all these parts, I believed that I’d like to even be a producer on this undertaking.
Talking about these three distinct roles you carried out on Final Samurai Standing, what was the problem of doing all three? And did every job impression the opposite and in what means?
Having these three roles, [it’s like] having to make use of three completely different brains, so it was very tough in that sense. As a producer, after all, it’s a must to take into consideration the cash or the monetary points, however a producer is somebody who often asks folks to do one thing, and also you’re additionally ready to cease a sure issues. An motion choreographer, you may suggest or counsel issues that you just wish to do otherwise you wish to pull off. And as an actor you’re on this place the place you attempt to grow to be this character, [you try to] imagine you’re that particular person… you often don’t must thoughts about what’s occurring in your environment. However having these three duties, I knew an excessive amount of concerning the environment, in order an actor it was positively a tough state of affairs.
‘Final Samurai Standing’
Netflix
Concerning your work as an motion choreographer, watching the present, there appears to be a number of completely different struggle types on display. What number of completely different struggle types are there? And was it tough to choreograph so many, even inside explicit struggle scenes that shift from martial arts, to swordplay to straight up brawling?
As an actor [and fight choreographer], it’s crucial to work on the choreography and the entire construction of these actions, and having that factor truly provides to constructing the character. I worth interested by the idea of the character and conveying that by means of motion choreography. For instance, there’s a feminine character known as Iroha [Kaya Kiyohara], you recognize that she’s a feminine, so she [may not be that] highly effective. In her fights, her struggle choreography, there’s a component of yin and yang to it — like what’s obvious and what’s not. There are actions, for instance, when she units a bait, however then she truly has a unique precise, supposed motion. So these are the issues that I actually, fastidiously, considered and ready. One other instance [with Iroha], when she’s preventing a really bodily giant stout male, it’s unattainable for her to actually struggle equally, so we have now to consider what can be reasonable and the way she would be capable of pull this off. It’s important to take into consideration being coherent and it’s a must to take into consideration mixing the fitting idea, and we gave the utmost care [to that].
‘Final Samurai Standing’
Netflix
However, was there a selected variety of struggle types within the collection?
Nicely, we have now an enormous quantity. The explanation why we have now an enormous variety of these completely different types for preventing is as a result of we have now the types per character, after which we have now completely different ideas and concepts and we even have types per fights after which per sequence too. [That’s] an immense variety of these types, if we had been to build up all of that. There are situations the place in a single struggle, you have got like three to 4 ideas after which, possibly, in a sure shot there’s extra issues taking place. So in that sense we have now a really giant variety of preventing types. In a single episode, I got here up with about 100 [concepts], however most of them aren’t truly adopted.
Talking immediately about two explicit struggle scenes. Within the second episode, “Awakening,” the place your character takes on the black uniformed officers and goes “beast mode,” it’s fairly unimaginable. Might you speak about the way you shot that? There’s additionally the one-shot scene within the seafood restaurant in episode 4, “The Mastermind,” might you speak about that too?
About these one shot [fight scenes], once we are engaged on these interval drama items, we all the time attempt to respect the style, and our intent and our mission was to replace the interval drama. As we see in [Akira Kurosawa]’s works there are these lengthy photographs, and in his body the placement can also be preventing in these battle sequences. We additionally wished to do this, and we wished to hook up with that. Personally, myself, I’ve been coaching in martial arts and different kinds, so I’m able to pull this [fight choreography] off alone, I don’t want a stunt double. I don’t want folks to cover my face and fake that it’s me. I’m able to be a part of that location in that sequence, and as you talked about, turning into like a “beast,” we name that an “awakening.” In that one shot [see clip above] we wished to convey the fact of preventing in opposition to folks with firearms — you can not have that a lot distance, so it’s a must to be a lot nearer. After which I’m additionally making an attempt to convey the techniques of preventing in that scene as properly, [showing that] I’m surrounded by lots of people. In that one shot, you’ll be able to see lots of these parts that I’ve been describing to date.
For the [seafood restaurant scene], there’s a distinction [as there were more people] and expertise [on show]. We had to remember how many individuals we launched. We thought of that scene like a [superhero] kind of scene, a second the place identical to within the Avengers you’re in a position to introduce everybody one after the other.
The seafood restaurant scene in ‘Final Samurai Standing.’
Netflix
It’s a unbelievable scene! Concerning the manufacturing total, it appears huge, by that I imply, the variety of units, the numerous completely different costumes, the variety of extras. How many individuals had been truly concerned on this undertaking? Additionally by way of historic accuracy, had been you slavishly making an attempt to be as correct as doable or had been making an attempt to only get the spirit of the period proper?
On the scale and scale of the manufacturing, if you happen to had been to incorporate actors and all extras, we have now this unimaginable quantity of individuals being part of this. And since we didn’t have sufficient time, we had two items. We had unit A and unit B, so it was two occasions the standard measurement, so about 2000 to 3000 folks. Speaking concerning the costumes. What occurred was that we contacted all of the seamstresses in Japan and we had all these homes working for our present. We had been working at this unimaginable scale.
[On the authenticity], we wished to have a good time Japanese tradition, we wished to raise the tradition to leisure, however its fiction. [However], we wished to keep away from portraying it as fantasy. The violence was our means of exhibiting how dreadful and scary that period was, but additionally making an attempt to not make it a fantasy with ending strikes or killer strikes for the characters, which had been within the authentic supply materials. We didn’t incorporate that, we wished to maintain it extra actual, having this actuality primarily based in historic information, that’s the care we had within the manufacturing. Alternatively, we making an attempt to make extra fashionable, the vocabulary, or the nuances are generally up to date, and never precisely true to that point.
That’s a neat segue to the manga, truly. Have been there main modifications from the manga? You simply talked about the violence facet, however had been there different key modifications?
The precise supply materials is the novel, after which there is also a manga, however, within the authentic, the characters have particular powers. For our present, for the primary season, we don’t have superpowers [for the characters], However, if Final Samurai Standing could be very well-liked and properly obtained, and if we had been to proceed on to the second season, there could also be a risk that we could be introducing a few of these points. However, for the primary season, we gave lots of care and focus into erasing the weather that might be thought of fantasy, we targeting making it really feel extra actual.
We must see how it will go, [but at the moment] I’m extra centered on the survival recreation factor. Ikusagami, which is the Japanese authentic title for Final Samurai Standing novel, has this reference to God. Within the first season, we launched the kagura dance, which is sort of a non secular ritual so there’s this factor of the superhuman energy, so we might be able to introduce this divine energy.
Final Samurai Standing is exclusive, but it surely additionally has these parts of very fashionable Japanese movies and TV reveals, like Battle Royale, Shōgun and Alice in Borderland, had been you impressed by these different tasks?
The simplest solution to describe Final Samurai Standing to the worldwide viewers, and for them to have a greater understanding of our present, is that it’s sort of like a combination of Squid Video games and Shōgun. However we’re truly including extra historic parts, and likewise as a result of it’s a interval drama, we’re going to be portraying and specializing in the livelihoods of those characters, their lives or conditions, incorporating parts like fireworks, the artist Hokusai, the kagura dance, parts of religion too. These are the concepts that we’re incorporating in our imagery and we actually wished to provide extra to the storytelling factor. We wished to indicate extra of the characters and we wished to emphasise the tradition of Japan, too. And since it is a Japanese interval piece, we wished to replace that style to introduce it globally.
‘Final Samurai Standing’
Netflix