Rurouni Kenshin (6/10)

I have to admit that I watched this because the second movie, Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno, is out now; and the third movie, The Legend Ends will be released the following week.

Adapted from the manga with the same name, Wandering Samurai, by Kiyomi Fujii and director Keishi Ohtomo; as a first and introductory movie I would have liked to see the origin of the titular character Kenshin Himura.

The movie explained part of the scar on his face, but not the other half. I would have liked to see how one of the victim's wife gave him that second cut as it was only narrated. And I would have like to see how he created that reverse-bladed sword.

Since I've never seen the manga, this is where I'll need some help. The movie felt like it's following way too closely to the source material. As a manga and a series, it would have been fine the way the story progressed or certain plot points happened that way. But as a movie, staying faithful to the original source material may not be the wisest option as many times they didn't work logically.

One part that stood out was where every sick person was carried to the dojo. That looked silly without proper explanations as a dojo is obviously not a clinic or hospital.

But the concept of this wandering samurai with a reverse-bladed sword is fascinating. But in the movie that concept was never elaborated well. How or why Kenshin still carried a sword was a metaphor that wasn't obvious enough to someone like me that isn't familiar with the character.

As for the cast, I didn't have any complaints. The female cast of Emi Takei and Yu Aoi were adequate. The male cast were much stronger, especially in Takeru Satoh playing the lead of course; but also Yasuke Eguchi (the samurai-turned-police Hajime Saito) and Koji Kikkawa (the antagonist Udo Jine).

Munetaka Aoki portraying Sagara Sanosuke, the only one who really looked like a 90's manga character with the hairdo and the gigantic sword, this character didn't really come off well for me. Especially wielding that unwieldy, heavy sword; could have done more damage with the size of that thing but yet did not.

And that brings me to the action choreography, which was sorely lacking in an action movie like this one. There weren't any memorable fight sequences because we rarely saw anything that was well choreographed.

Maybe only Go Ayano as the masked Gein had some cool moves. But how Kenshin stopped him was not clear at all.

Also, the movie didn't have to be more than 2 hours long. I could have done without a lot of parts. Some bits also suffered from the typical Japanese style of dragging a scene for way too long.

I do however really like the theme song of the movie, by One OK Rock titled "The Beginning".

And while the director could have done some of the afore-mentioned things better and keep the movie tighter, the overall direction was still commendable.

Especially bringing out the essence of Kenshin, even when I have never seen the manga or the animated series, I still saw who he was.

In the end, Saito said that "wandering is just an escape for the weak". I would like to see how this plays out in the second movie.