In the Autumn of 1274, Kublai Khan assembled his forces and attempted a naval invasion of Japan, but a typhoon sunk the Mongolian fleet. Seven years later, he tried again, and many small groups of samurai took to the sea on a suicide mission to kill as many invaders as possible. However, once again a typhoon moves in and crushes the invasion. These divine storms are considered a gift from the gods, and given the name Kamikaze. One of the men who has been willing to give up his life to stop the invaders is samurai Riku (Shogen Ito, December). He is still grieving over the loss of his wife and children, and feels like he has nothing left to live for.

After the storm subsides, Riku finds himself shipwrecked on what appears to be a deserted island. He’s wounded with no supplies, and a piece of the ship’s wreckage stuck in his leg. As he tends to his wounds, Riku starts to have visions and hallucinations of his family. As the days of struggling to survive pass, he grows more and more miserable, regretful, and lonely. He finds a sword on the beach, and decides to commit seppuku. But just before he can fall on his sword, he’s knocked out, captured, and taken by a tribe of cannibals.

Riku is brought to a dark cave where he’s tied up with other captives, several of whom who have already had limbs chopped off and blood drained for ritualistic practices and meals. One of the masked men in charge is Witch (Yayan Ruhian, Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, The Raid: Redemption), who assures Riku that if his tribe wanted him killed, he’d already be dead. Riku watches in horror as the other prisoners are slowly carved up one by one and dragged away. He’s also forced to drink the blood of these former captives. Riku is getting close to being the last one left, and this situation has given him a new outlook on life. He doesn’t want to die like this. While talking to a vision of his children as they play a game of “Beware the Samurai Pirates”, he promises his sons that he will collect the heads of 50 of these cannibals. With a new desire to survive to slaughter his enemies, it’s time for Riku to stand up and fight.
 

Lone Samurai is written and directed by Josh Waller (Raze, McCanick). The film is broken into two parts. In “Part 1: The Calm”, Samurai Riku finds himself shipwrecked on an island, struggling to survive, filled with grief, having visions of his deceased family, and ready to give up on life. “Part Two: Kamikaze”, covers the final two-thirds of the film, starting with Riku’s capture by the cannibals.

The film gets off to quite a slow start, and takes almost an hour to finally kick into full gear. The film opens with a short sequence of the Samurai attack on a Mongolian ship, but much of this takes place in near darkness, and the action can mainly be heard. Then we have 30 minutes of Riku wandering on a beach, feeling lonely and having visions of people who aren’t there. This is followed by another 30 minutes of Riku tied up in a cave, watching the other prisoners be tortured and mutilated, while he cannot or chooses not to intervene and try to stop it. Maybe he’s just resigned to his own fate at this point. When Riku initially meets the cannibals, and I recognized the actor who played the iconic “Mad Dog” in The Raid: Redemption, I was just anxiously awaiting the inevitable face-off between these two characters!

It’s not until the final 30 minutes that we really get to see a reawakened Riku in action, slicing away at mobs of attacking cannibals. This was by far the most exciting part of the film, seeing Riku’s swordplay and martial arts skills face off against the thrown weapons and more visceral fighting style of the cannibal tribe. I wish more of this kind of action had also been spread out across the first two-thirds of the film.

Lone Samurai doesn’t have much dialogue. Riku sometimes provides narration about his situation, and sometimes he speaks to the people in his visions/hallucinations, or we get some flashbacks of Riku’s family. These are offered in the original Japanese audio as well as in an English dub. But when the cannibals speak, it is always in a subtitled foreign language. It is unclear as to whether or not Riku is supposed to understand what they are saying.

Well Go has released Lone Samurai on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, DVD & Digital. We were sent a copy of the 4K release for review. Overall the video presentation looks quite good, with a clean, detailed picture, with a pleasant and natural looking level of film grain. During the lighter, daytime scenes, the film looks excellent, capturing the beautiful colors and textures of the island. However, there are several dark sequences where I found it quite difficult to see what was happening. These were scenes like the opening attack by the samurai, night time on the island, and a couple particularly dark moments in the cannibals’ cave. The cave sequences are often lit by firelight only. The 4K release does offer an HD version of the film in Black and White in the bonus material, and I think this version of the movie fares a little better in those darker sequences, where more detail is visible.

The film’s audio is offered in both its original Japanese in Dolby Atmos and DTS-HDMA, as well as an English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio dub (just for the Japanese portions). While some folks are purists and will only listen to the original audio, I generally try the English dub first, so that I can fully enjoy the visuals of the film rather than concentrating on the bottom third of the screen the whole time. I found this dub track to be quite good. It sometimes even made use of more natural sounding words and provided additional details compared to the English subtitles. Much of the dialogue and narration comes from the center channel, but both audio tracks do a nice job of using the other channels to provide an immersive ambiance. This is especially noticeable during the opening storm/typhoon sequences.

The single 4K disc comes packed in a standard UHD keepcase, and doesn’t contain a digital copy, but our review copy did include a cardboard slipcover. The only bonus material offered on the disc is an alternate black & white presentation of the film in HD. I’m not generally a black & white person, but I thought this worked really well, especially during the darker sequences. The B&W also gave the film more of a period/vintage feel.

What’s Included:

Film: (1:35:23)

4K UHD:
• 2160p / Widescreen 2.35:1
• Dolby Vision / HDR10
• Audio: Japanese Dolby Atmos in Dolby TrueHD, Japanese 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
• Subtitles: English, French

Extras:

• B&W Feature in HD (1:35:23)
  Watch the film in Black & White, presented in HD, with the same audio/subtitle options as the regular version of the film. I think some of the the overly dark scenes look a bit better in this version, where it is easier to make out the details.

Final Thoughts:

Lone Samurai may get off to a bit of a slow start, but it does a nice job of taking the central character on a personal journey, and closing things out with some exciting action/fight sequences. Well Go’s 4K release provides a pretty solid presentation, though there are a couple of darker scenes that are difficult to make out at times. The disc is a bit barebones when it comes to bonus material, but does offer an HD Black & White version of the film that provides a different and unique way to experience the movie. It’s worth a look for fans of the cast/genre.