LAST RONIN – Review

In old Japan, Ronin were Samurai without masters, roaming the land on their own, yet mostly still living by their code of honor. Their status and role in society varied through the centuries, but the lone wandering warrior image persists, and has been glorified in dozens of films from Japan and elsewhere. The anachronistically-title THE LAST RONIN is a bare-bones post-apocalyptic adventure from Russia. Yuri Kolokolnikov stars as the eponymous figure – a grizzled older fellow, looking somewhat like Ron Perlman, traveling alone through the desert hellscape. The katana (sword) on his back is the most important of his few possessions. We learn that his main reason for living is to find the guy what kilt his pappy and wreak vengeance upon him.

He’s approached by a tough young woman (Diana Enkaeva) who wants to hire him as a bodyguard. She offers to pay in bullets, which is the main form of currency in that dismal future. Her goal is reaching a wall that’s a long trek away from the enclave in which she was raised. We gradually learn why she left shortly before the end of their sojourn. Along the way, they run afoul of a marauding gang and a few other menaces scattered around this low-tech, scarce-resources, sparsely populated era.

Everything about their world and the production is minimalist. There’s a lot of bleakness in the environment and the lives being lived therein. But writer/director Max Shiskin sprinkles in a satisfying amount of violence – mostly blades, arrows and bullets, with bits of martial arts – to contrast with the stars’ dreary slog. The final act takes some surprising turns when an unexpected (by them and us) destination is reached.

The underplayed performances of the principals work well in defining the milieu and their resulting personalities. This matters, since most of the foes they encounter are faceless or anonymous, putting the dramatic load squarely on their shoulders. It’s something like a MAD MAX world, but far less noisy and flashy. No extant vehicles to be found, and the weapons du jour are simpler.

The closer our world leaders come to blundering and blustering us into this sort of future, the more tales in this genre seem like training films than fantasies. Alas.

THE LAST RONIN, in Russian and some French with English subtitles, debuts in digital formats on various platforms on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025, from Well Go USA.

RATING: 2 out of 4 stars