Review: Rurouni Kenshin (movie; spoiler-content)
Direction, camerawork, visuals
From the cool greys and blues that saturate the opening scenes of the movie, marking the end of Bakumatsu, to the warm, earthly spring hues of Japan at the turn of Meiji, to the pristine winter of the flashbacks, the movie is a real feast for attentive eyes. It's impeccable in its attention to details - rust and blood scarring the surface of the swords, a rich man's extravagant pipe, mud-stained bowls, hair that reflects the status and character of the head beneath it, clothes with folds and textures and history in every blemish. And on top of it, lights, shadows, colors, angles going in and out of frames, the camera sweeping with the story, sometimes agressively, sometimes quietly, reflecting motion, suspense, contemplation, everything comes together to create a sumptuous world. The amount of obvious love and attention that goes into creating a tactile, living world is amazing
There's this sense of authenticity in the rhythm, the furtive glances, the tiny bows. It's the kind of movie that feels so right, right in the way that lets you know that the makers get the story down to the bones. The movie is peppered with striking, dynamic camerawork and editing that blur the distinction between spectacle and observer, most notably in the first half of the movie. An example would be the scene where Jin'ei cornered Kaoru under a bridge, his sword at her neck, and at the next moment Kenshin leaps off the bridge to rush Kaoru into the ground. The camera zooms in to Kaoru and Jin'ei, up close, almost claustrophobic, obscuring the vision of the viewer into tunnel blindness before abruptly switching and pulling up and you see this blur crashing down, and the camera crashes with him (and her). The sequence forces us to see things from Kaoru's perspective.
The movie doesn't really shy away from blood, gore or horrifying scenes, but it never goes for the slasher film approach either. In sequences that pay homage to the treatment frequently employed by Studio Deen's adaptation of Kyoto arc, rice paper doors are splattered with blood and shadows on
walls obscure the violence.
Character, Acting, Interpretation
On the whole, the actors are well-cast, especially the Kenshingumi
Sato Takeru did a good job embodying Kenshin's quiet, lighthearted, cat-like presence, although he seems far more at home with the impish smiles and the gently widened eyes and the effortless whimsy. In scenes that require him to tap into Kenshin's darker side, he seems less convincing
Kaoru is one character who often falls victim to flat portrayals, but Takei Emi's turn is poignant and warm and intimate. Kaoru's sentiment toward the legacy of her father, her resolute stubborness, the foolish pride, her sisterly fondness for Yahiko and affection for Kenshin are communicated in a way that is quiet yet pronounced and mined from her expressive face. Hands down the best Kaoru we ever have. I don't have anything against Kaoru's voice actress in the anime adaptation but I do hope people who have only ever met that Kaoru could see this movie.
As for Yahiko, Taketo Tanaka is a boy wonder. Watching child actors try to embody precocious charm on the camera can be a trying experience, but he nailed it.He is so winning, so cheeky, so natural and brash that you can't help but laugh with him. He is perfect. The actor also has a natural sparkle to his eye that says 'street smarts', a necessity for a street urchin character like Yahiko
Aoi Yuu's Megumi is good, although she doesn't surprise me much. The actress has accolades to her name, so I did expect her to be good, and...she is good. So there is that. Megumi's characterization here feels subtly yet significantly different from both manga and anime Megumi in a couple of ways-manga Megumi carries this natural sense of sadness and a quiet torch, almost devotion-like, for Kenshin; Megumi in the movie is timid but fiery and she doesn't see Kenshin through the lens of gratitude or devotion
Although Yosuke Eguchi bears little resemblance to Saito physically, he is, in every other way, the perfect Saito. It helps that the script seems to understand Saito better than Studio Deen's OVAs ever did. This Saito is inflexible and jaded, but he also has a sense of loyalty, duty, and as much a man of displaced past as Kenshin is-he's just a lot more pragmatic and no-nonsense. The last two qualities define the Saito we see on the screen. It's also clear that the movie sees Saito more as an antihero, a foil / ally to Kenshin, as opposed to a two-dimensional enemy he's often painted as.
Overall, the characterization is a study in moderation, closer to the manga than the anime. Kenshin has the lighthearted spring to his feet, but he never goes for slapstick humor. Kaoru wears her heart on her sleeve but there's a shy quietness anchoring her portrayal. Yahiko is brash and loud but never obnoxious. The clash between Kaoru's insecurity and Megumi's flirtatiousness is also toned down, closer to the manga than the anime. Megumi's attempts at flirtation feels, rightly, more like an attempt to change the conversation away from her past rather than a tiring exercise of the 'foxlady' trope.
One character that suffers from simplification in the movie is Sanosuke. As I told @aritzen, manga Sanosuke is part coiled anger and part heart-and-hilarity. The movie and the actor do a sparkling job representing Sano's hilarious brashness and his trademark 'defense, what defense?' approach to life and fighting, but much of his initial antagonism toward Kenshin, the tragic story of Captain Sagara (Sano's big brother and surrogate parent figure who fought for and was ultimately betrayed and executed by the Meiji government), his anti-government beliefness and willingness to almost-join what essentially amounts to a terrorist plot-these were all glossed over in the movie. In defense of the filmmakers, it is a decision that makes sense given the movie's time constraint (it already bleeds long at two and a half hours). Moroever, anime audience are more familiar with Sano's clownish, big-hearted side, and for a movie aimed at both new and returning viewers, Sano's simpler side might seem a more palatable side to court the audience. Hopefully if they'll do a sequel, Sanosuke will get more layered work put into him
Story, Writing, Adaptation
The movie covers almost all the tiny arcs and stories that made up the Tokyo arc, essentially one third of the whole series, with the exception of the Yutaro arc and Yahiko vs teahouse bullies. In specific bullet points, it covers:
1. The battousai copycat
2. Jin'ei
3. Takeda Kanryuu's opium den / Megumi
4. The pre-Kyoto fight between Saito and Kenshin
5. Admiral Yamagata's meeting with Kenshin
6. Remembrance flashback (the murder of Tomoe's fiance)
7. Sano's introduction / fight with Kenshin
8. The dojo crasher mini-story
Looks like a lot, eh
If you're hoping for a textbook, linear adaptation, you'd be surprised. Despite being a fan of the manga with decent memory of specific stories, the movie almost feels like a new experience to me. It offers something both fresh and familiar. Familiar in its characters, dialogues and the issues it touches, but fresh in the way it presents the story. In the filmmaker's hands, the separate storylines are spliced and remixed, broadened and connected, allowing them to exist simultaneously, bleeding and affecting each other instead of arriving one after the other as they were in the manga.
The result is pretty interesting. Plot points that belong to weaker stories, such as the the Battousai copycat (Gohei / Kohei) become an ominous undercurrent when connected to Jin'ei. Jin'ei's carnage gains deeper emotional resonance when connected to Saito and Kenshin's past, Battousai's brutality and the Kenshin / Tomoe flashback. Saito's role as police officer and his strict moral code are given a more sympathetic light when brought to contrast with Takeda Kanryuu's story. Some die-hard fans may consider these shuffling and reworking of stories some kind of blasphemy, but personally I feel it shows good faith, confidence and earnest love for the source material to be able to adapt with faithfulness without following everything to the letter. It's partly common sense--you can't fit one third of a series to the average movie length without some nip and tuck. A movie also demands strong emphasis and immediate message and it means having to be really economical about things. They did a good job making everything fit together coherently, the result far more than the sum of its many components.
(*Time constraint also means that the tragic story of the Oniwaban quartet under Aoshi's command are completely removed from the story. If you're a fan of Aoshi, you may find this unacceptable, but I can see why the movie removes Oniwaban from the story. The Oniwaban backstory (Hannya disfiguring himself to better serve his role, the group trading their once-important purpose to help a drug lord for survival's sake, the deaths, Aoshi's suicide attempt, his despair at losing his four comrades at once, the decapitated heads) are far too complex and bleak to fit into what is essentially an origin story without costing the movie its focus and tone.)
Some of the choices they made (refitting the 'welcome home' / 'I am home' exchange that so poignantly wraps the Kyoto arc into the ending of the movie, removing the Oniwabanshu from the story's universe entirely, having Kenshin see Tomoe grieving after her dead fiance) can pose serious issues should they decide to continue and adapt the two post-Tokyo arcs at some point in the future, but hopefully they'll figure out a way when the time comes