Lone Samurai (2025) [Well Go USA]

Shipwrecked and preparing for ritualistic suicide, a lone samurai finds a new motive for life when he’s attacked and taken by a tribe of cannibals.

One way to instantly get my attention is to take a contemporary hero and place them in a horror setting. My favorite Punisher comic is Welcome to the Bayou, a story where Frank Castle finds himself fighting against a bunch of inbred psychos in a “Wrong Turn” situation. Bone Tomahawk did something similar when the creators put a posse of cowboys through a hellish nightmare, the likes of which you’d expect to see in an entry from “The Hills Have Eyes” franchise. That film quickly became one of my favorite westerns, so one can imagine how I felt when I was granted the ability to watch 2025’s Lone Samurai, a movie that takes a classic 13th century warrior and thrusts them into “The Green Inferno”. For the uninitiated, that’s Eli Roth’s jungle-cannibal film from 2013. The concept couldn’t have pulled me in any faster if it tried.

Lone Samurai is brought to us by writer and director Josh C. Waller. His previous work includes writing 2014’s Cooties, directing 2013’s Raze, and producing the Nicolas Cage films Mandy and Color out of Space. His resume is packed full of projects I’ve adored over the last decade and he shows no signs of slowing down when it comes to releasing stories that grasps my curiosity. This time around, Waller’s story and presentation feels more grounded and down-to-earth. We open on a shot of Riku, our Lone Samurai, aboard a Mongolian ship he’s infiltrated. The ocean waves toss the boat back and forth, but that barely slows our protagonist down as he makes quick work of his opponents. His victory is scarcely felt, as the oceanic storm decides to end the fray on its own by sinking the ship. Riku awakens on the shoreline of a foreign land, far from home and out of enemies. His mission now complete, and with no rational way back home, Riku prepares a torii, an arch that symbolizes the transition from the human world to the sacred afterlife, and proceeds to turn his blade onto himself. For better, or worse, he’s struck down by an indigenous tribesman before he can commit to his act. He’s then taken to a cave where he’s to be prepared for a feast.

There’s a slow burn to Lone Samurai’s presentation. We spend quite a bit of time with Riku long before his ritual is interrupted and he’s taken. The audience experiences the journey with our hero every step of the way as he mends his wounds, prepares wood for the torii, and chooses the best place to enter the afterlife. The trip avoids becoming too mundane thanks to Shogen, the actor portraying Riku. With a believable portrayal of a wounded warrior who wishes to die by his own terms, Shogen holds the narrative successfully as a one-man-show for the first half of the movie, which can only be expected from a man with 79 roles to his name as of the time of writing. Well known in Japan, Shogen may best be recognized by Westerners thanks to his role in 2014’s Street Fighter: Assassins’ Fist, the first live action adaptation that ever took that franchise seriously. Charming, physically capable, and with sore shoulders from doing all of the heavy lifting for Lone Samurai, Shogen delivers an honest performance not often seen in such films.

Those who portrayed the cannibal tribe did what they could with their roles as cannon fodder for Riku, who awakens, monitors the enemy, and strikes when the time’s just right. The tribe’s threat comes from their leader, Boar, and their wise man, Witch. Where Riku is patient and calculated, Boar is brutish and overconfident. He taunts his would-be meal and promises that escape only exists through his stomach. The threat comes from Rama Ramadhan, a relatively new actor with a history of stunt work from such projects as The Raid: Redemption. This is where he first worked with the actor portraying Witch, the advisor who sees Riku as a demon and viable threat to the tribe. Witch is played by the ever recognizable Yayan Ruhian, who moviegoers will remember from The Raid films, John Wick: Chapter 3, and Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens. As soon as he first appeared in a scene I pleasantly blurted out loud, “Oh hey! It’s that guy!” Both Yayan Ruhian and Rama Ramadhan take the antagonists to a higher level than what we often see in cannibal films, adding a touch of personality to what would normally be reduced to cliché tribal behavior.

The only downfall to Lone Samurai is it’s late stage tonal shift. The slow burn of the first half of the film sets up expectations for a similarly paced followup but once Riku is set free, he makes little work of the tribe for the remainder of the film. This would be comparable to an alternate Bone Tomahawk ending with Kurt Russell simply shooting all of the cannibals and going home. Granted, this should have been expected from a release by Samurai vs. Cannibals, LLC. This film crew only ever had one real goal… Unleash a Samurai with nothing to lose unto a group of tribal man-eaters. That’s exactly what you get for the final half of the film. While this keeps the film from slipping into true horror territory, it makes for a great excuse to showcase a samurai cutting down an overwhelming force just for the hell of it. The end result is a more than acceptable pop-corn flick worthy of a movie night with friends. True entertainment for the sake of entertainment, without demanding too much from the viewer. Anyone looking for something fresh, but not too fancy, should check  it out.

Lone Samurai releases on DVD, Blu-ray, 4K Ultra HD and Digital on March 17^th from our friends over at Well Go USA.