What to stream this week: Netflix’s samurai extravaganza and five more picks

This week’s picks include a Japanese action hit with hints of Squid Game, Chris Hemsworth’s moving road trip and the return of the Bump crew for a Christmas cracker.

Last Samurai Standing ★★★★ (Netflix)

Comparisons be damned. This Japanese action extravaganza has a galvanising mystery plot deeply reminiscent of Squid Game, while the setting of a turbulent 19th century Japan clearly recalls Shogun. Both influences are so obvious that Last Samurai Standing refuses to be impeded by them. They’re building blocks, and this sword-on-sword extravaganza is more than happy to layer an entertaining series of its own atop them. Yes, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai is a sacred text, but how much fun is 700 samurai?

Opening with a bloody 1869 battle that ends the pre-eminence of the traditional Shogunate and the samurai, the six-episode series picks up 10 years later. The “Sword Abolishment Edict” is in effect, and one-time samurai legend Shujiro Saga (Junichi Okada) is desperate as poverty and cholera circle his family. When a brochure convenes a competition for former warriors with a vast cash prize Shujiro attends, discovering hundreds of fellow entrants and a deadly format: from one checkpoint to the next, the players advance solely by killing one another.

For the record, Last Samurai Standing was adapted from Shogo Imamura’s 2012 novel, Ikusagami, which also became a 2022 manga series. But the Squid Game parallels for streaming are obvious, starting with the black-clad guards who execute quitters and a mocking host, Enju (Kazunari Ninomiya). There’s also rich oligarchs betting on the carnage and a mystery organiser, but the aesthetic is different – Squid Game’s cartoonish pop is replaced by eerie nocturnal sets and supernatural malevolence.

The show is also extremely dedicated to its fight scenes. The launch of the game turns into an extended Battle Royale bloodbath, and from there on the action set-pieces, choreographed by Okada, cover the martial arts spectrum. One episode might have a long, ritualistic duel between two former comrades, another might send the camera skittering through a chaotic trap being sprung in a teahouse. The fighting sets up various imposing villains, most notably the bloodthirsty Bukotsu (Hideaki Ito), who yearns to kill Shujiro and the naive young contestant, Futaba (Yumia Fujisaki), he’s protecting.

As a period mystery, Last Samurai Standing has an earnest momentum: telegrams are tracked and government officials race by carriage to understand what motivates the competition. Flashbacks illustrate the plight of entrants, such as a haunted female warrior Iroha (Kaya Kiyohara), while the driving martial score reinforces the inexorable condensation of the game. It all adds up to a wild variant that, whether sombre or slashing, happily takes off from its familiar foundation. Action heads should delight in a series where the fighting is so intense, sweat literally sizzles on a hot sword.

Chris Hemsworth: A Road Trip to Remember ★★★½ (Disney+)

“The dad’s looking at his son with a lot of love,” Chris Hemsworth says at the start of this documentary, reflecting on a 1980s family photo of him as a young boy standing with his father, Craig. That bond never leaves this hybrid story, which charts the scientific and personal responses Chris undertakes as the reality of Craig’s Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis becomes clear. It tries to squeeze too much into 50 minutes, but it’s genuine where it matters.

With Dr Suraj Samtani, from the University of NSW Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing, offering expert advice throughout, Chris introduces Craig to Reminiscence Therapy. The treatment broadly works to enhance cognitive health, as the memories of patients are sparked by revisiting familiar people, objects and places. With a National Geographic budget, the pair visit the family’s time capsule 1990s Melbourne home and go on a motorcycle journey across the Northern Territory.

The framing leaps from drone shots to tight close-up, but the emotional range is more nuanced – pleasure and pain intermingle. The wider lessons are not just about helping Alzheimer’s sufferers, but how men can give voice to difficult emotions. Chris’ celebrity is inescapable, but diplomatically muted – Craig and Chris visit the tiny Indigenous community of Bulman as returning residents, simply happy to see old friends. The one constant: the son’s looking at his dad with a lot of love.

Bump: A Christmas Film ★★★ (Stan*)

It’s a testament to how well Bump was put together that this bonus movie, set in between the events of the show’s final episodes as the leading characters embark on a South American holiday, can fit in so easily to a narrative that had previously concluded with such emotional clarity. Crucially, it gives us one more instalment with Claudia Karvan’s Angie, the matriarch whose struggle with cancer was central to the final seasons. The movie has a posthumous, pleasurable energy, worthy of a tale where chaos and comfort were everyday realities.

NFL RedZone ★★★★ (Disney+)

Unlike the AFL and NRL, which spread their matches across long weekends, America’s National Football League still plays the majority of games on a Sunday. Through its growing ESPN sports hub, Disney+ is now the best streaming way for NFL obsessives to keep up with every score: NFL RedZone is a constantly evolving update show that switches from one highlight to another or runs multiple games – sometimes eight! – in a split-screen format. It starts at 5am on Monday and runs for more than six hours, all expertly helmed by host Scott Hanson.

Good Boy ★★★ (AMC+)

Is it nepotism when a film’s director casts his dog in the lead role? Thankfully, it works in this high-concept supernatural thriller, where filmmaker Ben Leonberg’s four-legged companion, Indy, a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, plays a canine hero of the same name. Screen Indy and his owner, the ailing Todd (Shane Jensen), relocate to a rural home, where Indy’s senses immediately pick up spectral bad vibes that Todd misses. Via point-of-view shots from Indy’s perspective and low-budget menace, the loyal doggo struggles to protect his best friend.

Spaced ★★★½ (Binge)

You can trace numerous productive careers back to this delightfully absurd British sitcom, which debuted in 1999 and ran for two seasons, including co-creators and stars Simon Pegg (the Mission: Impossible movies) and Jessica Hynes (The Franchise), as well as filmmaker Edgar Wright (Baby Driver, The Running Man), who directed all 14 episodes. Full of pop-culture references and a zesty visual style that would prove influential, it’s broadly about the path out of the 20-something malaise. It’s also about crazy schemes and friends who do completely mad things. It’s a fun time-capsule binge.

*Stan is owned by Nine, the publisher of this masthead.