Samurai X - El Infierno de Kyoto

I am deeply surprised. I was expecting a really bad adaptation, as it has been done before. This movie however is great. If you grew up watching the anime you will be pleased, as it brings to life the right personality of the characters. They even have that goofiness Himura always showed whenever he was surrounded by the ones he loved. But shifting right back to some cold heart determined killer that awarded him his nickname. The fighting scenes, were tremendous. None of that "shaking camera" BS that Hollywood vomits on us. Really well done.

The filming and editing are sublime. I could easily notice on one of the big fights (wont spoil it for you), the still burning ashes floating around the scene, giving me instant flashbacks to the anime. Really nice touch. And the opening scene of Shishio and Saito is tremendous.

The action is great. Himura is perfectly portrayed, with all of his goofy nuances, deep honor, shame, guilt, and killer instinct. And the same can be said of the remaining characters. Sanosuke is as obnoxious and lovable as ever. And Sojiro is perfectly depicted in his psychopath childish assassin persona.

I feel like i could show this movie to people that have never seen the anime, and they would still love it. Great work guys.

Asian studios have been trying to adapt manga/anime to live-action for decades. They all failed.

Finally, we can call all this pre-Rurouni Kenshin. The first movie had some flaws, some unbalance, but it ultimately delivered. Now, Kyoto Inferno is a great 2nd part leading the way to The Legend Ends.

The Shishio Makoto story-arc is super long in the manga. All the Juppongatana mini-story arcs were left behind because of that. This makes it possible to condense it to 2 movies.

So, do not expect deeper character development. The movie decided to focus on the very specific attempt to bring down the government and undo the Meiji Ishin (by the way, do read about it at Wikipedia, go look for the terms "Bakumatsu", "Meiji Restoration" and you will understand better the background about Sekigahara, Toba-Fushimi, and you will feel less lost in case you don't know Japanese History).

If you watched the anime or read the mangas (which I highly recommend), you will easily feel in the gaps with what you already know. The movie stitches together several memorable scenes from the source material.

Some parts had to be adapted, of course, and I think they did a good job, specially on how they fit the Oniwabanshu. Not sure how the Aoshi story-arc will fit in the next movie.

This movie had to remove several stuff from the source material in order not to look silly in a live-action, such as the special moves, screaming attacks ("Ryuutsuisen!"). But I'm most interested in how they will fit Kenshin's mentor of the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu on the next movie (in the manga he will teach him the ultimate moves, Kuzuryuusen and Amakakeru Ryuu no Hirameki). He does show up very quickly so it's going to interesting how this unfolds.

The relationship of Kenshin and Kaoru, of course, had to be diluted to the bare minimum to give Kenshin the motivation to go forward (it was already diluted in the source material).

All in all, the filmography is superb, the casting is spot on, the story adaptation was very competent to compress a very complex source material.

If you're already a fan of the series, you will not be disappointed. If you're new to the series, this could motivate you to go read the original.

"Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno" picks up where the excellent first episode left off. The year is 1878, the New Age of Japan has taken over the Imperial/Samurai Age.

A ruthlessly ambitious and dangerous assassin, who was thought to have been executed in the last war, Makato Sishio, had been killing a large number of policemen. Officials seek out Himura Kenshin, the young wanderer ex-assassin with the X-scar on his left cheek, as the only possible match against Sishio. Upon receiving the invitation from the government officials and seeing the terrors inflicted by Sishio and his goons on the citizenry, Kenshin accepts the challenge and sets off to Kyoto to seek out and put an end to Sishio's mad plans.

From the first film, we still have Kenshin's friends: fencing instructor Kaoru, street fighter Sonosuke, doctor Megumi and the young boy Yahiko. We also see samurai-turned-police chief Hajime Saito.

Aside from a couple of big battle scenes where Kenshin practically single-handedly plows through entire troops of Sishio's soldiers, we also see Kenshin in several impressively choreographed one-on-one fights scenes with major supporting characters. First he had a funny fight scene with feisty little Misao Makimachi, who tries to steal his sword. Kenshin fought elegantly with Sojiro, Sishio's effeminate but highly-skilled right-hand man, which actually resulted in the breaking of Kenshin's old trusty back-bladed sword. Kenshin has a big brutal fight with the crazy blond fighter, Cho, which gained for him a new sword to continue his fight with.

Another big fight scene was between Elder, the leader of the Hidden Watchers, a group of vigilante ninjas of which Misao was a leader, and an enigmatic side character Aoiji, an ex-Hidden Watcher who was now on a singular mission to kill the Battosai (a.k.a. Kenshin). His appearance in this film is quite puzzling.

As with the first film, the cinematography, costumes and production design are all so meticulously good. The execution of the fight scenes are also so very well-done. The musical score ranged from traditional Japanese melodies to rock music during the climactic and fiery Kyoto Inferno scene.

However, this second film is clearly just a bridge between the first and a future third film. Even if this film lasted for a long 2 and a half hours, all this one did was set up a battle-royale between Kenshin and Sishio in the third and final film. Unlike the first movie, this film does not end like it could stand by itself. The ending of this one is obviously set up as a cliffhanger for bigger things to come. Fortunately for us, we will only have to wait just another more month to watch that.

One of those rare sequels that only improves upon the promises of it's predecessor, a dynamic and sprawling adaptation of the franchises infamous Kyoto arc. THIS, and the previous film should be held in high regard, and be looked to as the gold standard of how to adapt a long running arc to film format. This film seriously trims all of the needless filler character fat from the source. What they changed turned out to be good for it. Incredible action direction once again coordinated by Kenji Tanigaki. The devotion from the actors here, as they all performed their own stunts and mastered their own choreography, is really a feat to behold. All in all, Kyoto Inferno is just as good as the first film, if not better. Despite being the first of a two part sequel, it manages to be a self-sufficient, coherent story. Virtuosic.

I'm not a huge fan of the Samurai genre. The blood, brutality and cruelty that inhabits many of the films in this genre is, at times, very disturbing. It was a pleasant surprise therefore to encounter the Rurouni Kenshin series. These films follow the Samurai formula but depart from the norm in so much as they actively downplay the brutality in favour of a more peaceful, hopeful message.

The key character Rurouni Kenshin could best be described as a reformed Samurai. Rurouni has come to see the wastefulness of taking human life, choosing, instead, to take a less lethal approach to subduing the bad guys with the blunt edge of a double edged sword. Of course, there are always a few genuinely vile villains and these are dispatched with the swords sharpened edge.

Its my understanding this is the second in the live, as opposed to animated, Rurouni Kehshin series of films. I watched the first and enjoyed it immensely so I decided to give the second a go. This film is darker and more serious than its predecessor, possessing somewhat less humour. The violence is a little more intense too and occasionally sadistic but not overly graphic. The conspicuous fight scenes, as was the case in the first outing, remain remarkably polished and exceptionally well choreographed. Especially when you consider the large scale and numbers of people involved in many of the battles scenes scattered throughout the film.

The key fight scenes between central hero's and villains are of the highest caliber and its these moments of stirring swordplay and martial skill that make this film really shine. Combine this with solid, original storytelling, good pace and some novel plot twists and turns and you have a very engaging action flick.

I watched both this film and its predecessor from end to end without getting up once or feeling in any way bored.There are subtitles, unless, of course, you speak Japanese but I found this film, like the first, so engrossing they hardly felt like any effort at all.

Nine of of ten from me.