Josh C. Waller’s Lone Samurai may not reach the heights of the Kurosawa classics it clearly reveres, but there’s enough craftsmanship and energy here to make it worth the journey. The premise is straightforward enough: 13th-century ronin Riku (Shogen) washes up on a remote island following a shipwreck, and after contemplating ritualistic suicide, gets captured by a tribe of face-painted cannibals who provide him with ample motivation to keep breathing — and slicing.
Patience is arguably the film’s greatest asset. That opening third, where Riku wanders the Indonesian wilderness in near-silence, grappling with grief and wrestling with whether his pain serves any purpose, demonstrates a meditative quality that elevates the material beyond typical action fare. Waller shoots the lush forests and crashing waterfalls with genuine reverence, and Shogen brings a sort of wounded introspection to these sequences; when he constructs a makeshift shrine and steels himself for seppuku, only to be interrupted by the beauty of the natural world around him, the film earns its contemplative moments.
The second half delivers on its samurai-versus-cannibals premise with gusto. Overseen by veterans of The Raid, the action choreography serves up plenty of intensity, thanks in no small part to the welcome inclusion of Yayan Ruhian. The protracted beach battle that closes the film may test the patience of some viewers, but the commitment to extended combat gives the finale a mythic quality that mostly works, even when it’s obvious that Riku so thoroughly outmatches his opposition that the outcome never feels in doubt.
Waller deserves credit for attempting something ambitious with limited resources, blending arthouse aesthetics with crowd-pleasing action in ways that don’t always cohere, but still remain compelling. Lone Samurai is neither a contemplative character study nor a balls-to-the-wall action spectacle, but in its attempt to split the difference, it lands more often than it misses.