LONE SAMURAI Review: A Mythic Promise Gets Washed Ashore

Legend says Japan was saved twice by a miracle.

In 1274 and again in 1281, as Kublai Khan's Mongol forces advanced to conquer the archipelago, samurai mounted a desperate coastal defense, only for brutal typhoons to surge in and tear the invading fleets apart. Those storms became known as kamikaze: divine winds that protected Japan when no earthly power could.

Josh Waller's Lone Samurai (2025) opens amid the second storm: a Mongol warship wobbling at brutal angles. Inside the ship, a single samurai cuts through invading forces as lightning flashes against the chaos. The battle unfolded in near-total darkness, engulfed by the sounds of clashing swords and spurting blood. This sequence unfurls as an austere voice intones the stakes of the battle.

What begins as an intense battle ends almost instantly: the samurai washes up shipwrecked and alone. The lone surviving samurai (Shogen Itokazu) wakes up ashore a deserted island, a soldier who has fulfilled his duty with brutal precision now adrift and purposeless. The samurai crawls inland, twice nearly choosing to commit seppuku (ritual suicide) -- first halted by the sublime sight of a towering mountain, then again by a violent attack. The second time, he is knocked out and captured by cannibals.

For anyone who loves chanbara (sword-fighting films) -- think Seven Samurai (1954) or Rurouni Kenshin: The Final (2021) -- the premise alone is enough to spark excitement. Add the fact that some of the choreography comes from veterans of The Raid, and you're practically guaranteed to be locked in. But Lone Samurai squanders that promise. Its 90ish minutes slogs forward as the samurai wanders aimlessly across the island before being captured by a band of cartoonishly evil natives. The story is stitched together so sloppily that there's no tension, no momentum -- just dead air between swings of the blade.

In better genre films, one-dimensional plotting can be forgiven when the action dazzles. Here, even that fails. The entire final act is essentially one prolonged fight, yet it never finds a real pulse. There is no rhythm, no accelerating choreography that builds -- nothing that resembles the electrifying craft its marketing hints at. Instead of a climactic dance of steel, we get a tedious grind that leaves the promise of those divine winds far behind.

Much of this can be blamed on the shallowness of the titular lone samurai. Admittedly, the psychological toll of isolation -- and the loss of a soldier's purpose -- should offer fertile ground for a compelling story. And the first third of the film does lean into this tranquil, contemplative crucible. Too often, the narrative defaults to cutaways of the gorgeous natural scenery instead of developing its ideas.

Any moment of introspection that might have taken root is quickly discarded, replaced by bursts of senseless violence. To be clear, violence is to be expected (and desired), but with reason. The script keeps us at arm's length, leaving nothing to hold onto and no reason to care. All the blades and blood in the world can't save a film that forgets why anyone should care who's swinging.

The film opens Friday, December 12, in select theaters and on digital platforms, via Well Go USA. Visit their official site for more information.