Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno (7/10)

Having just watched the first movie, Rurouni Kenshin, it's easy to see the improvements over the first one very clearly.

I still didn't like everything Keishi Ohtomo did with the movie and some of the characters though. The movie in the middle still crawled at an unbearable pace, a pace that is infamous in the Japanese serials.

I could have done without the crying. Once, that was enough. Set it up, let it settle, and move on from it already. Keishi even brought back another crying scene from the first movie as a flashback. There were just too many crying in the middle.

As for Munetaka Aoki's Sanosuke, he was even more over-the-top with his portrayal as he brought manga onto the silver screen. His character looked needy, emo and unnecessarily loud. I have come to loathe this character in this sequel.

But the improvements made here took the movie to another level, and they were what was sorely lacking in the original. The action choreography, though not spectacular, but were enough to satisfy a movie like this one. At least we got to see some cool fight sequences that only used camera tricks to depict in the first movie. Just this alone was a big plus point for me.

And by not having to set any characters up like they had to in the first movie, the storytelling felt smoother and less of the jarring plot holes of the first one.

But character introduction seemed to be Keishi's weak point. While Tao Tsuchiya's Misao was supposed to be of a ninja clan, her fight style and movements were loud and brash and were nothing like a ninja. It was such a bad set up that I was so surprised to find out she was actually trained as a ninja.

At least this time we had a scarier antagonist portrayed by Tatsuya Fujiwara, as well as his right-hand assassin in Ryunosuke Kamiki. These were formidable enemies that had more meat to their characters.

But again, character introduction of Tatsuya's Shishio, which I once again have to assume stayed true to the anime, was way too much. To be stabbed that many times and burned, yet he still managed to crawl out alive - Keishi could have made it more realistic.

Oh, and way too many posing by Kenshin. Even more so than the first movie.

However, I still am looking forward to the final installment to see this trilogy comes to an end. I thought it's supposed to be out this week in Brunei, but now it seems like it's pushed to next week.