Rurouni Kenshin Part II: Kyoto Inferno (2014)

Really Surprised!

Memorable, crazy movie

Good movie but grossly overrated

As Good As It Gets

The film lacks in every field. SPOILER! The script is worthless: Kenshin sucks and loses to the villain. Kenshin meets his master and wants to learn the masters secret technique. His master tells him that the will to live is the key to becoming a good swordsman. Kenshin becomes a lot better at fighting because if this. Sounds quirky? It is. We find out the that the villain can only fight a couple of minutes due to previous injuries. Kenshin fights villain for more then a couple of minutes and the villain dies.The directing is really sad. Every character is allowed to have one feeling. Angry, sad, no feelings, humorous, screams for no reason and so on. You can figure out which feeling that goes to with character really quick. No character really changes in any way more than that Kenshin getting to know the unknown secret that makes him a "better" swordsman.I can go on and on but lets just summarize it with one sentence: see the anime series instead!

I am deeply surprised. I was expecting a really bad adaptation, as it has been done before. This movie however is great. If you grew up watching the anime you will be pleased, as it brings to life the right personality of the characters. They even have that goofiness Himura always showed whenever he was surrounded by the ones he loved. But shifting right back to some cold heart determined killer that awarded him his nickname. The fighting scenes, were tremendous. None of that "shaking camera" BS that Hollywood vomits on us. Really well done.The filming and editing are sublime. I could easily notice on one of the big fights (wont spoil it for you), the still burning ashes floating around the scene, giving me instant flashbacks to the anime. Really nice touch. And the opening scene of Shishio and Saito is tremendous.The action is great. Himura is perfectly portrayed, with all of his goofy nuances, deep honor, shame, guilt, and killer instinct. And the same can be said of the remaining characters. Sanosuke is as obnoxious and lovable as ever. And Sojiro is perfectly depicted in his psychopath childish assassin persona. I feel like i could show this movie to people that have never seen the anime, and they would still love it. Great work guys.

Rurouni Kenshin is composed of three films. The first film is complete in itself and others consist one story. The final film has shown since 13 September but I have not watched it yet. I'm very looking forward to it. This film is based on a manga which is popular but I have never read because I don't like historical stories. However, once that I watched the first one on TV, I have been captivated by it. First of all, casts are really good. They are very famous in Japan especially the main actor, Takeru Sato, is popular with young people because he is good at acting. In addition, I love Tatsuya Fujiwara because he is really cool. Unfortunately, his face is mostly covered with a bandage so I'm shocked.Second, I don't feel an old-fashioned atmosphere so much. I think this is because of the young actors and actresses and action scenes. My image of period films is that many people fight and a screen is overcrowded. However, this scene is fewer and one to one fight is focused which is like a hero animation.Finally, I think the structure is not good. The first one is OK but others are too long to watch. When I watched this second one, I was getting tired of it in the middle and I could sometimes expect what happen next so I hope the final film is good structure and good climax.

"Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno" picks up where the excellent first episode left off. The year is 1878, the New Age of Japan has taken over the Imperial/Samurai Age. A ruthlessly ambitious and dangerous assassin, who was thought to have been executed in the last war, Makato Sishio, had been killing a large number of policemen. Officials seek out Himura Kenshin, the young wanderer ex-assassin with the X-scar on his left cheek, as the only possible match against Sishio. Upon receiving the invitation from the government officials and seeing the terrors inflicted by Sishio and his goons on the citizenry, Kenshin accepts the challenge and sets off to Kyoto to seek out and put an end to Sishio's mad plans.From the first film, we still have Kenshin's friends: fencing instructor Kaoru, street fighter Sonosuke, doctor Megumi and the young boy Yahiko. We also see samurai-turned-police chief Hajime Saito. Aside from a couple of big battle scenes where Kenshin practically single-handedly plows through entire troops of Sishio's soldiers, we also see Kenshin in several impressively choreographed one-on-one fights scenes with major supporting characters. First he had a funny fight scene with feisty little Misao Makimachi, who tries to steal his sword. Kenshin fought elegantly with Sojiro, Sishio's effeminate but highly-skilled right-hand man, which actually resulted in the breaking of Kenshin's old trusty back-bladed sword. Kenshin has a big brutal fight with the crazy blond fighter, Cho, which gained for him a new sword to continue his fight with.Another big fight scene was between Elder, the leader of the Hidden Watchers, a group of vigilante ninjas of which Misao was a leader, and an enigmatic side character Aoiji, an ex-Hidden Watcher who was now on a singular mission to kill the Battosai (a.k.a. Kenshin). His appearance in this film is quite puzzling.As with the first film, the cinematography, costumes and production design are all so meticulously good. The execution of the fight scenes are also so very well-done. The musical score ranged from traditional Japanese melodies to rock music during the climactic and fiery Kyoto Inferno scene. However, this second film is clearly just a bridge between the first and a future third film. Even if this film lasted for a long 2 and a half hours, all this one did was set up a battle-royale between Kenshin and Sishio in the third and final film. Unlike the first movie, this film does not end like it could stand by itself. The ending of this one is obviously set up as a cliffhanger for bigger things to come. Fortunately for us, we will only have to wait just another more month to watch that.