The third instalment of the period action film, “Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends”, opened earlier this month in Singapore. The movie ends a series of live-action adaptation of the classic manga series, “Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Swordsman Romantic Story” – more popularly known by the much more succinct and obvious title, “Samurai X”.
Written and illustrated by Nobuhiro Watsuki, the series follows the titular character – a notorious assassin of the Meiji Revolution going by the name Hitokiri Battousai – as he struggles to come to terms with his dark past. Equally humorous and enigmatic, the wandering red-clad swordsman with the cross-shaped scar on his cheek has won the hearts of many fans over the past two decades.
With as much dramatic flair as the title demands, “The Legend Ends” hit local box office and was immediately welcomed by a foray of dissenting and disapproving voices. Sure enough, a few minutes into the climax of the scene, many fans were already mourning (and perhaps secretly hoping) for the ‘legend’ to end.
Directed by Keishi Ootomo, the series started off with a rather forgettable and condensed version of the Tokyo arc in the manga. A review on Anime News Network written by Ko Ransom describes the movie as “an accessible, crowd-pleasing hit for the end of summer”. While the first movie almost veered into the dangerous category of over-acting for the sake of comic effect that often plagues live-action adaptations of manga, the second movie took a rather dark yet pleasing turn. “Kyoto Inferno” was, indeed, a tough act to follow.
Rather than form the last two parts of a trilogy, it is better to see the two movies as a two-part movie that makes the Kyoto arc of the manga series. Shishio Makoto (Tatsuya Fujiwara), the successor to Kenshin’s (Takeru Satou) Hitokiri name during the Meiji Revolution, is on a personal mission of vendetta against the new Meiji government, and Kenshin must stop him. “Kyoto Inferno” serves as the necessary ‘awakening’ of the hero – Kenshin realizes how strong and destructive Shishio is, and, by the unforeseen deliberate hand of the cliffhanger, Kenshin finds himself washed ashore and picked up by his master, Hiko Seijuurou (Masaharu Fukuyama), with whom he completes his training.
As convoluted as that sentence is, that is essentially the first half of “The Legend Ends”. Sure, no one expects the movie to be all action, but the first hour can be quite a drag. Fukuyama, an otherwise stellar actor, speaks with such an affected drawl in his role that it breaks this fangirl’s heart. Hiko might have been a flashy character with an amazing cloak and oozing ultra-manliness with every cameo in the manga series, but bringing this element to live-action is, basically, over-acting.
However, if fidelity to the manga series was what “The Legend Ends” intended to keep, perhaps there was a quota imposed on the number of characters to keep from the original series. Perhaps the greatest quip fans have with the movie is the extreme condensation of the backstories of the Juppongatana (Ten Swords) members. The Juppongatana are a group of elite warriors who believe in the same cause as Shishio and is fighting to bring down the new government as well. Half of these revolutionary and elite warriors do not have their names mentioned. Stripped of their names, these characters are simply part of the Extras in the background; even then, blink and you might miss them (fans can make a drinking game out of this). The fallen monk, Yuukyuuzan Anji, has the functional role of providing a ten-second overview of the tragic pasts of the Juppongatana members deemed worthy of note, before being disposed of for comic relief.
Right, maybe it is slightly longer than ten seconds; I wasn’t exactly keeping count on my watch in the cinema. To do the filmmakers justice, the movie would be 4-hours long if they gave enough screentime and development to all ten members of the Juppongatana. Still, the character development of the other characters-who-are-not-Hitokiri achieved in “Kyoto Inferno” is abandoned in “The Legend Ends”; Kaoru (Emi Takei), in an exemplar performance of a Bechdel monologue, appears on screen only to pine for Kenshin.
Is there nothing to redeem this movie? Of course not. These are all just complaints of a RuroKen ‘purist’ fan. Casual moviegoers would find the over-acting tedious and wonder at the rather ‘developed’ Extras in the background (if spotted); otherwise, the movie is enjoyable. The action sequences are, as they are in “Kyoto Inferno”, well choreographed and even impressive.
Satou explains, in a variety show, the workings behind the stunts in the movies; he did some of the action scenes without the help of stuntmen, such as running on roofs and even on walls. The cinematography is breathtaking as well; a long take as Kenshin and Sanosuke board the warship to a horde of Shishio’s henchmen is particularly impressionable. Coupled with the pyrotechnics of Shishio’s Infinite Sword, “The Legend Ends” does not pale in comparison to the fiery action scenes of the other movies in the series.
“Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends” started showing in Singapore cinemas on 9 Oct 2014 and is still showing on local screens. Catch it if you have watched the first two and are the kind who needs closure, or if you love action flicks. I don’t know.
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