Anyway, it is not an English assignment. It is purely an English review made by an audience of a movie and a fan of an anime series.
Ruroni kenshin, or simply known
as Samurai X, is a widely popular manga. It has been adapted into anime and
several OVAs. This year, Warner Bros takes a chance to adapt this
Restoration-Era-manga into a live action movie. The movie was released on
August 2012. This time, I’ll present you the movie review into two parts: apart
from the original story and anime-movie comparison.
Apart from the original story
First, let’s put aside the manga
or anime imagination from the movie. Generally, Rurouni Kenshin is a well-scripted
movie. The story is simply amazing and describing a singular phenomena about
The Good versus The Evil decorated by Post-Restoration era in Japan. The
characters are as well building up the climax of this simple story. This movie
will entertain audiences who are not expecting the complicated philosophy in a
film. Unfortunately, the film-taking is not much compelling. Most of the
fighting scenes are not cinematographed well. So, it seems like we are watching
the swinging swords and sudden dead people without any clear clashes in
between. The Meiji-Era setting is also not well developed. It seems like we are
watching a Japanese drama in a particular studio. Mostly, we can not enjoy the
Post-Restoration setting which consists of Meiji-Era buildings and people. So,
apart from the original story, this movie is much entertaining because of the
simple story and characters which build up to it.
Anime-movie comparison
If you are well aware with the
story arcs from the original story, you will see the story of this movie is unclear
and crowded story. This movie is trying to tie several story arcs (even OVAs)
into one new story. As we aware with the original story, we will see the lack
of elaboration and complicated philosophy which is actually a value from Rurouni
Kenshin original story. We won’t see the personality growths from each
character because they are compressed into a nearly two hour live action movie.
The character, especially Kenshin Himura or The Battousai, is not well
elaborated despite a good acting from Takeru Satoh as the post-manslayer
wanderer. Originally, Kenshin is a complicated character with a deep turning
philosophy from a cold-blood manslayer fighting for Restoration into a naïve
gold-hearted wanderer. But in the movie, we only see a person walks into path
of redemption without any principal justification as we see in the original
story. Same thing goes to Saito character which is described as a loyal police
without showing his Shinsengumi ‘Slay, Evil, Immediately’ philosophy in this movie.
Then, the dramatization of the
movie is not well-developed. Rurouni Kenshin, even is a samurai movie, is not a
full-slasher movie. The dramatization of the story is needed for making this
movie granted to be remembered. The original soundtracks which made by Noriyuki
Asakura in three seasons of Rurouni Kenshin anime is achieving a high
dramatization of the original story. As the result, we can see that people will
always remember several Rurouni Kenshin story. The movie adaption will gain a
greater good if the dramatization, especially in original soundtracks, succeeds.
Conclusion
Rurouni Kenshin is simply a great
live action movie. it is basically entertaining. But, this anime-comparing is
happened when the storyline of the live action movie does not satisfy audience
well. Of course, it is hard to please people, especially the hardcore fans.
But, several noble values of the original story need to be elaborated in an
adaption in order to gather the old fans and newer audience of the movie. A
hope rises for the next adaptation of Rurouni Kenshin story. I personally think
that Trust and Betrayal OVAs is worth to be adapted as the next live action
movies with several cameos of Kamiya Dojo casts. This adaptation is needed to
elaborate Kenshin character. As the third adaptation, it will be great if Kyoto
Arc (Shishio and Juppongatama awaits!) combined with Enishi Arc (even if
Enishi’s accomplices have been shown in this movie) is installed as the epic
conclusion. I think it will be a great
series of movie, that I really do.
having a good day everyone ?
