Hello everyone, it is I, your Feisty Indian Aunty who just watched Rurouni Kenshin (yes, both the movies) on Netflix. They are Rurouni Kenshin: Origins from 2012 and the most recent one, Ruroni Kenshin: The Final, which was just released this year. If you love action movies, like me, then these sorts of martial arts movies are an absolutely great watch.
Both these movies are right up my alley. Having spent my life feasting on movies with Steven Seagal, and Jean Claude Van Damme, and Sylvester Stallone, I am a sucker for anything with assassins, their need to kill, and their motivations. I’ve always felt that these sorts of movies are a true reflection of life. They are, after all, about duty, revenge, and redemption. Something we can all relate to surely.
Origins introduces us to an assassin named Himura Kenshin (Takeru Satoh), also known Hotokiri Battosi, who repents, abandons his sword, and takes a vow never to kill again. He wanders around the country with a reverse-edged sword, saving people, and helping them.
Rurouni Kenshin: The Final gives us a picture of what really happened and why Kenshin abandoned his previous life. It is also the story of the two scars on his cheek – one from Akira Kiyosato – who was killed by Kenshin – and the other from Tomoe – Akira’s fiancée – who was accidentally killed by Kenshin while saving him from assassins. Tomoe has a brother Yukishiro Enishi (Mackenyu Arata), a leader of the Shangai mafia, vows to avenge his sister’s death and comes to kill Kenshin.
If you want to watch Rurouni Kenshin, I recommend that you watch both movies as only then will you really get a sense of what is happening. I did enjoy the martial arts parts of the movies very much and the plot was seamlessly sewn together from the first to the second movie. The fight choreography was amazing. It was nice to see such incredible swordplay. (It has made me want to go and watch the other Kenshin movies, but my son tells me that they aren’t available on Netflix just yet.)
My only issue with these two movies is that, other than the fight scenes, they are rather slow to get moving. The time each character took to communicate with each other was unhurried and deliberate. Which can get a little wearing at times. I’m not sure why the took this approach. Was is possibly to create a greater emotional impact? Did everyone in Meiji Japan speak like that?
The one thing I could not fathom was the ridiculous hair styles of both Kenshin and Enishi. They had hair falling over their faces while trying to successfully battling their enemies. That was truly baffling.
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