The first live-action installment of Rurouni Kenshin judiciously cut several arcs from the original manga and anime story to deliver a tight, cohesive narrative that built up to a satisfying conclusion — even if it did reveal a few late-story secrets far, far too early. The first half of a two-part follow-up, Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno (a.k.a. Kyoto Taika-hen) suffers by failing to take the same discretion with the source material, choosing instead to mirror the manga's episodic, drawn- out build-up to the decisive confrontation between Himura Kenshin (Takeru Sato, a former Kamen Rider) and Makoto Shishio (Tatsuya Fujiwara of Battle Royal and Deathnote fame).
This film could easily have worked as a televised miniseries, with a sense of minor resolution every twenty minutes or so as a greater, unifying threat loomed in the background. But as a singular arc, Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno lacks any cohesive build or pay-off as Kenshin wanders from one seemingly arbitrary encounter to the next. A plea for help. An assassinated official. A stolen sword. A village in peril. A search for a swordsmith. A plot to burn Kyoto. A desperate rescue. An open-ended conclusion. And between each burst of choreographed violence, a ream of static exposition that would nearly send George Lucas looking for an editor.
The story partly suffers from its need to play clean-up to some first- film decisions. Hajime Saito (Yosuke Eguchi) has already been introduced as an unambiguous ally, and although he's allowed to display more badassery this time around, the film lacks the taut-wire tension between Kenshin and the ex-Shinsen Gumi leader that formed the backbone of the manga's sensational Kyoto arc (Saito's opening face-to-face with Shishio is also a bit silly, largely resembling an outtake from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom).
The film also struggles to introduce Aoshi Shinomori (Yusuke Iseya, who was interesting in Casshern back in 2004). While wisely excluded from the first film — another semi-villain would have just been too much — cramming all of his development into an expository sub-story this time around fails to do justice to one of the series' most compelling characters. By the time he faces off with Kashiwazaki Nenji (Min Tanaka), the ostensible leader of the Oniwa Banshu ninja group (translated here as The Watchers), we really haven't had time to get to know him or care about his goals.
One standout, however, is Tao Tsuchiya, who's delightful to watch as Oniwa Banshu ninja Makimachi Misao. While her attempts at anime-style spunk don't quite work, her full-throttle wire-assisted combat displaces enough bamboo to evoke positive memories of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Ryunosuke Kamiki (voice of Bo in Spirited Away and Marukuru in Howl's Moving Castle) similarly sets up an effectively creepy Sojiro Seta, though in a film crammed with so many new characters, we don't quite get to know who he is so much as simply what he does.
As for the remainder of the supporting cast from the first film, they are almost entirely cut from the runtime, appearing only during Kenshin's should-I-go-to-Kyoto quandary at the opening and then again at the end. This leaves Kenshin meandering the middle arc as an arbitrary avenger, with only an incidental connection to the travesties Shishio creates around him — and repeated scenes of women and children weeping extravagantly over dead bodies feels more desperate than driving. With Sato's portrayal of Kenshin predominantly set to glower, we don't get a clear sense of the radical shift between his carefree and killer states, and it's unclear which moments truly resonate with the reformed assassin.
The action sequences are exceptionally well-choreographed, and generally fun to watch. But with so many featuring hero-vs-the-world stuntman slaughter, tension is quickly lost. While there are fits of incidental action, there are only two big one-on-one fights for the title character, and the second, though Bourne-like in its innovative use of tight spaces, involves an antagonist we barely know and who only serves to mechanically set up the next plot point (He's also done up a little too ridiculously for a live-action villain — another area where deviation from the source material would have been wise).
Taken on the whole, the film feels like watching only the first quarter of Kill Bill Volume 1 stretched to 139 minutes. Much sound and fury, signifying little — and even a citywide battle in the penultimate arc seems arbitrary and unearned. Having gone through so many unrelated minor objectives, the stakes are unclear and the emotional investment isn't there. Perhaps this will all be put paid in the second half, promised in September. But until then, this Rurouni Kenshin feels long on tease and short on delivery.
(Disclosure: I got to play the first plummeting body in the video for One OK Rock's Mighty Long Fall, the film's closing theme.)
This film could easily have worked as a televised miniseries, with a sense of minor resolution every twenty minutes or so as a greater, unifying threat loomed in the background. But as a singular arc, Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno lacks any cohesive build or pay-off as Kenshin wanders from one seemingly arbitrary encounter to the next. A plea for help. An assassinated official. A stolen sword. A village in peril. A search for a swordsmith. A plot to burn Kyoto. A desperate rescue. An open-ended conclusion. And between each burst of choreographed violence, a ream of static exposition that would nearly send George Lucas looking for an editor.
The story partly suffers from its need to play clean-up to some first- film decisions. Hajime Saito (Yosuke Eguchi) has already been introduced as an unambiguous ally, and although he's allowed to display more badassery this time around, the film lacks the taut-wire tension between Kenshin and the ex-Shinsen Gumi leader that formed the backbone of the manga's sensational Kyoto arc (Saito's opening face-to-face with Shishio is also a bit silly, largely resembling an outtake from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom).
The film also struggles to introduce Aoshi Shinomori (Yusuke Iseya, who was interesting in Casshern back in 2004). While wisely excluded from the first film — another semi-villain would have just been too much — cramming all of his development into an expository sub-story this time around fails to do justice to one of the series' most compelling characters. By the time he faces off with Kashiwazaki Nenji (Min Tanaka), the ostensible leader of the Oniwa Banshu ninja group (translated here as The Watchers), we really haven't had time to get to know him or care about his goals.
One standout, however, is Tao Tsuchiya, who's delightful to watch as Oniwa Banshu ninja Makimachi Misao. While her attempts at anime-style spunk don't quite work, her full-throttle wire-assisted combat displaces enough bamboo to evoke positive memories of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Ryunosuke Kamiki (voice of Bo in Spirited Away and Marukuru in Howl's Moving Castle) similarly sets up an effectively creepy Sojiro Seta, though in a film crammed with so many new characters, we don't quite get to know who he is so much as simply what he does.
As for the remainder of the supporting cast from the first film, they are almost entirely cut from the runtime, appearing only during Kenshin's should-I-go-to-Kyoto quandary at the opening and then again at the end. This leaves Kenshin meandering the middle arc as an arbitrary avenger, with only an incidental connection to the travesties Shishio creates around him — and repeated scenes of women and children weeping extravagantly over dead bodies feels more desperate than driving. With Sato's portrayal of Kenshin predominantly set to glower, we don't get a clear sense of the radical shift between his carefree and killer states, and it's unclear which moments truly resonate with the reformed assassin.
The action sequences are exceptionally well-choreographed, and generally fun to watch. But with so many featuring hero-vs-the-world stuntman slaughter, tension is quickly lost. While there are fits of incidental action, there are only two big one-on-one fights for the title character, and the second, though Bourne-like in its innovative use of tight spaces, involves an antagonist we barely know and who only serves to mechanically set up the next plot point (He's also done up a little too ridiculously for a live-action villain — another area where deviation from the source material would have been wise).
Taken on the whole, the film feels like watching only the first quarter of Kill Bill Volume 1 stretched to 139 minutes. Much sound and fury, signifying little — and even a citywide battle in the penultimate arc seems arbitrary and unearned. Having gone through so many unrelated minor objectives, the stakes are unclear and the emotional investment isn't there. Perhaps this will all be put paid in the second half, promised in September. But until then, this Rurouni Kenshin feels long on tease and short on delivery.
(Disclosure: I got to play the first plummeting body in the video for One OK Rock's Mighty Long Fall, the film's closing theme.)