I went to see the Rurouni Kenshin live-action movie yesterday. I couldn't understand much of the conversation in it, to be honest, but I know the original story very well, so I think I was able to understand most of what was going on.
For those who don't know, Rurouni Kenshin is a popular anime/manga about a wandering swordsman, a rurouni, named Kenshin. Kenshin fought in the Bakumatsu war, in which he was the legendary assassin known as the 'hitokiri battousai'. After the war, Kenshin disappeared from public life, renounced violence and took to the road.
Now, ten years after the war, he carries a reverse-bladed sword which is not designed to kill. He prefers to live peacefully but once his identity becomes known, this becomes impossible - he faces endless battles as people come to him for revenge, asking for his help, or to prove themselves against him. The manga and anime series begin when he meets a young girl, Kaoru, who runs a dojo and invites him to stay after he helps her. Throughout the series, new friends and allies are added to the main cast, as well as an endless stream of opponents.
So how was the movie?
I was a little apprehensive, because it can be difficult to translate an anime to the screen without it being a little cheesy or overblown - a lot of the exaggerated elements of anime/manga - the dramatic speeches, superhuman feats, crazy hairstyles, eccentric personalities - can just look ridiculous when done by live actors. The movie mostly manages to avoid this, although the villains have their over-the-top moments, and there are a few silly parts, like the gang of ruffians who attack the Kamiya dojo.
On the other hand, there are other odd or improbable elements of the book - like Jin-e's powers, Hanyuu's bizarre appearance, etc - which they were able to bring in without it being too over-the-top or ridiculous-looking. The fight scenes were pretty cool too.
On the whole, I think they did a good job with this movie. They took the story seriously, and in fact, this is a fairly serious movie, a little darker than its source material. The movie focuses on the first few episodes of the anime/manga and condenses them into one movie, along with some background on the war and Kenshin's role in it. This focus on story means that some content and character development must be cut, some elements changed and really, it doesn't have a lot of time for the lighter or more comedic elements of the original comic.
While I think they treated the source material respectfully and generally put together a good movie, there were a couple of things I didn't like about it. I think they tried to do a little too much, with too many story lines and new characters. Of course, the movie wanted to introduce all the main characters we know from the show, and have various challenges for them all to overcome, but there was a lot they needed to cram in there. Toward the end, I was starting to wish the movie would hurry up and finish. I think this was also partly because the movie did take a bit of a serious tone and wasn't very fun.
Anime/manga vs movie (spoilers ahead)
In making the movie, they combined a few story arcs - the first one, where Kenshin meets Kaoru and there is a fake Battousai, the Kanryuu arc where they meet Megumi and the Oniwabanshuu, and the Jin-e arc where Jin-e tries to make Kenshin break his vow not to kill. They adapted these arcs to make them more interconnected. The false Battousai, who disgraced Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu, was Jin-e, who was also affiliated with Kanryuu in some way; while Sanosuke and Kenshin were fighting the Oniwabanshu, Jin-e was taking the opportunity behind the scenes to kidnap Kaoru. This movie introduced Saito as a character right from the beginning, but dispensed with Aoshi.
For the sake of time, and not having too many story arcs (there were already several), a few story parts are simplified, mostly relating to how the characters are introduced. Aoshi is gone - a good thing, I think, as there would have been no time to do him justice. Sanosuke joins Kenshin pretty readily, and at the beginning of the movie, when Kaoru meets Kenshin, Yahiko was already part of the dojo.
As a Kenshin fan, there were two things I particularly liked about the movie - firstly, the chance to 'see' life in the Meiji era in Japan, and secondly, the chance to see each character I know come to life.
So how were the characters and their actors? In general I thought the actors were quite good and fitting for their characters. Some were spot on - Yahiko, for instance, looked and acted just like his animated counterpart, I thought, although he didn't have much of a role in the overall story. I also enjoyed Sano, who did the brawler bit well and provided some much-needed comic relief. He didn't get a whole lot of character development, but I suppose there wouldn't have been time for it.
I thought the girls were well done; Kaoru was a good actor, if somewhat different from how I would have pictured her (I suppose the problem with anime/manga is that you envision everyone with pointy chins and noses!) - my only beef with her was that she really never showed her stuff as a swordswoman or showed the feisty side of her character; she was tough-minded but mostly regulated to the role of damsel in distress. Megumi, the other damsel, was very pretty and did the suffering woman/'fox' role justice.
Kenshin himself was well acted but he was the one character that really didn't match what I would have expected. He was a bit too much of a pretty boy and looked like he could have come straight out of a boy band, which I found slightly distracting; I could never quite believe his character was Kenshin, rather than a handsome actor playing Kenshin. Saito, also, became quite a handsome guy. He was introduced earlier than he was in the actual manga/anime, but I guess he was a popular character in the comic, so they wanted to give him a role in the movie.
Summary
If you're a Kenshin fan, I'd recommend this movie. It's at least worth it to see your favourite characters brought to life. Personally, I like the manga much better - being much longer, we have more breathing space and more time to get to know the characters - but the movie is generally faithful to the original while avoiding some of the 'larger than life' elements that would make a live action version ridiculous. The acting is good and the storylines are woven together quite effectively.
If you're not a Kenshin fan, would you like this movie? Well… if you like Japanese movies, or are interested in Japanese culture, you might enjoy it. I don't know if this film would have widespread appeal outside of Japan or fans of Japanese movies. If you see it, let me know what you think. ^_^
