A Beautiful Bloodbath
Summary
Lone Samurai may have a slow start for some tastes, but your patience is rewarded as the second half is absolute carnage with a final fight which will be hard to beat for any other movie this year. If you see Yayan Ruhian in the cast you are guaranteed some incredible fight scenes as he’s one of the best in the business.
Plot: A 13th century samurai finds himself shipwrecked on an island he believes to be deserted. As he contemplates his existence, it seems like a dignified death at his own hands might be his best solution. However, when he is captured by the murderous cannibal tribe that calls this island home, his survival instinct kicks in.
Review: I’ve been looking forward to watching Lone Samurai for a while; as soon as I saw Iko Uwais was a producer and Yayan Ruhian was playing a cannibalistic warrior I knew this was going to be an absolute bloodbath.
The first 25 minutes are gorgeous looking as our lone samurai, Riku (Shogen) is washed ashore on an island after a shipwreck. He is preparing to join his late family, but is interrupted by a native tribe of cannibals.
That opening was the calm before the storm as the mid-section of the movie goes into full-on horror while the final 30 minutes is just one massive fight scene.
As expected, Yayan Ruhian has a climactic showdown with Shogen and it doesn’t disappoint. I can’t wait for someone to do a kill count for this movie; surely it will be in the high double digits as Riku takes no prisoners. After seeing what the tribe has done, they deserve everything he does to them. It’s satisfying stuff with limbs lopped off and it’s one of the most graphic movies I’ve seen for a while.
Thankfully, there’s no such thing as too violent however, I probably wouldn’t suggest eating while viewing especially during the middle.
The score is perfect and matches the atmosphere of everything happening on screen especially with the sumptuous visuals.
In terms of flaws I guess there isn’t much to it, but it delivered everything I wanted from it and I doubt any Hollywood action film will top that final half hour this year. We shall see…
Overall, Lone Samurai is already one of the best action pictures of the year with disturbing elements of cannibal horror too. It has a massive bodycount, gorgeous visuals and badass lead in Shogen.