by kuro-hime
Kenshin has settled into his new life with Kaoru and his other friends when he is approached with a request from the Meiji government. Makoto Shishio, a former assassin like Kenshin, was betrayed, set on fire and left for dead. He survived, and is now in Kyoto, plotting with his gathered warriors to overthrow the new government. Against Kaoru's wishes, Kenshin reluctantly agrees to go to Kyoto and help keep his country from falling back into civil war.
(~adapted from wikipedia~)
REVIEW :
Honestly, I was happy to hear that there will be a sequel to the Rurouni Kenshin live action movie and I was super ecstatic when I heard it would be on the Kyoto Arc.
They even split the movie into two parts as it's impossible to put in the entire Kyoto Arc in just two hours.
Well, I rushed to the theaters the moment the movie came out.
It was worth it.
The directing of the movie is perfect.
The cinematography is amazing.
I like how they set it in the meiji era Japan and it looks very real, with real dirt and atmosphere. It was a delight. My eyes had a hard time absorbing all the details in.
Honestly, I was worried how they would portray the villains. I was so worried that it could go wrong but the movie pleasantly surprised me.
I found their portrayals to be very accurate to the anime and manga.
As a fan, I was pleased with this movie.
However, as a reviewer, I did agree that the movie felt draggy at certain times while it moved faster at other times. Therefore, the pacing of this movie wasn't the greatest.
And one thing, this movie was surprisingly very violent. This was something that I didn't really expect. Not only that, all the humor that we are used to, is almost all gone. The only one providing comic relief is Sano and sometimes, it just feels sad that Sano character is only used as that because as fans, we know he is more than that.
The fighting scenes were once again superb and wonderful. It was so brilliant that it left me breathless.
Point is, Kyoto Inferno did a good job is setting up the premise and making us want part 2 right now.
Over all, I found Kyoto Inferno to be a very good movie.
I rate it a 8 out of 10.
(will be reviewing "part 2 : the legend ends" really soon)
