Movie review - Samurai Fury

Samurai Fury **** (out of 5) The year is 1461 (for the movie, not us, though many think we’re regressing globally). Japan is in a state of chaos. The country is ravaged by plague, with 82,000 deaths, and counting; the peasants who haven’t succumbed are starving and besieged by different groups of debt collectors, using the most despicable tactics; a slew of ronin (samurai with no master to serve) are roaming the country without purpose; the Shogun ain’t doin’ diddly-squat to help anyone or stem the violence from the evil monks and warlords. In the midst of this, one ronin, Hasuda Hyoe (Ôizumi Yô), emerges as a good guy, who might just make a difference. That may require butting heads with his longtime friend Honekawa Doken (Shin'ichi Tsutsumi), who is in charge of forces defending the ruling class.

Hyoe picks up a spirited apprentice he calls “frog” (Yuya Eendo) among the cringing masses and sends him off to an old sensei for a year of training. Then he gradually assembles a rag-tag army of other ronin and willing villagers to storm the capital in Kyoto. Their main goal is to destroy all the loan papers the monks holding them have been wielding to brutalize debtors and their families during this time of extreme hardship. His plans are intricate, building slowly to what will, ideally, become the Big Day.

Standard stuff, so far, as this sort of theme is quite common in East Asian martial arts and action period fare. Since it’s set in the era before guns, swords, spears, staffs and arrows are the non-anatomical weapons of the day, with occasional explosions. That calls for top-notch stunt choreography, and the film delivers superbly on that front, with relatively little wire work, thereby maximizing its grittiness.

Genre fans have seen the de rigeur training sequences in the majority of these films. Frog’s regimen for mastering the pole (the weapon, not the stripper support) is unique, and much more interesting than most, both visually and in content. The climactic battle sequences are huge in scale, bloody in execution and fascinatingly intricate. Kudos to writer/director Yu Irie for elevating the level of writing and action above the norm, and for crafting so many elaborate sets for the long course of events. Frog’s character arc is particularly satisfying, as well as the frenemy situation that unfolds between Hyoe and Doken.

The 135-minute running time is just fine for the material presented. It seemed shorter, which is among the highest compliments I ever give.

(Samurai Fury, in Japanese with subtitles, debuts on Digital formats on 10/7/25, and becomes available on 4K & Blu-ray 10/28 from Wellgo USA.)