TOKYO (AP) — “Last Samurai Standing,” a Netflix series launching on Thursday, is set in a Japan where the feudal samurai era is about to end.

The hero, Saga Kokushu, played by Junichi Okada, is one of dozens of samurai in a live-or-die survival game to save family, community and honor. Participants receive wooden tags to wear and add another for each rival they kill. The last man standing collects 100 billion yen ($650 million).

Directed by Michihito Fujii, whose credits include “The Journalist,” about a fearless reporter, and “A Family,” depicting yakuza gangsters, the series pays homage to modern-day video games as well as the legacy of Japanese filmmakers like Akira Kurosawa and the original “The Last Samurai.”

That 2003 film, directed by Edward Zwick, starred Tom Cruise as the samur

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