Junichi Okada juggles many roles, from actor to producer and action choreographer on Netflix’s new drama Last Samurai Standing.
Critics, who raved about the show, have particularly hailed the series’s fighting scenes.
About them, the creative behind them tells THR, “As an actor [and fight choreographer], it’s very important to work on the choreography and the whole structure of those movements, and having that element actually adds to building the character.”
He continues, “I value thinking about the concept of the character and conveying that through action choreography. For example, there’s a female character called Iroha [Kaya Kiyohara], you know that she’s a female, so she [may not be that] powerful.”
“In her fights, her fight choreography, there’s an element of yin and yang to it — like what’s apparent and what is not. There are movements, for example, when she sets a bait, but then she actually has a different actual, intended action,” the producer notes.
“So those are the things that I really, carefully, thought about and prepared.”
“Another example [with Iroha], when she’s fighting a very physically large stout male, it’s impossible for her to really fight equally, so we have to think about what would be realistic and how she would be able to pull this off.”
“You have to think about being coherent and you have to think about mixing the right concept, and we gave the utmost care [to that],” Junichi concludes.
The Last Standing Samurai is streaming on Netflix.
