How entertaining?     ★★★☆☆
Thought provoking? ★★☆☆☆

23 November 2014

This article is a review of RUROUNI KENSHIN 2: KYOTO INFERNO.

By Hemanth Kissoon

"No one can throw away his past," Kenshin Himura (Takeru Sato) to Kaoru Kamiya (Emi Takei)

From opium dealing to civil war. From docklands turf skirmish to national apocalypse. Part two has stepped up the narrative stakes. Predecessor RUROUNI KENSHIN is a gangbusters samurai actioner, working on its own. Following up was not necessary; but when you have this level of brill sword choreography, why the hell not? When second and third chapters are made simultaneously, the middle slice in the triptych suffers more often than not. And unfortunately bridging story tarrying, until the conclusion, frustrates as KYOTO INFERNO has a sense of holding off the action buzz. Mild dissatisfaction is the result. Come the home entertainment release of all three, that hanging on will not be a problem.

1878, cool cat cop chief Hajime Saito (Yosuke Eguchi) - a mixture of John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart and Toshiro Mifune, - leads a cohort of colleagues on a mission to capture/kill enemy of the state Makato Shishio (Tatsuya Fujiwara). Police officers are yanked into the walls and disposed of using horror tropes à la BATMAN BEGINS. Cigarette dangling from mouth as he sword fights, in badass insouciance, Saito has Shishio in his sights only for the latter to evade apprehension amid a cavalcade of flames. Shishio's face has the bandages of mummification, glimpses of exposed flesh hinting at deep scarring.

When the Home Ministry calls in Kenshin, the most dazzling swordsman of the age, as the nation’s only hope, do we get a handle on Shishio. As if Superman took Kryptonite, and turned evil, Shishio is the mirror opposite to our hero. Kenshin renounced killing post-civil war (which saw the Shogun of Japan replaced by an Emperor), yet still fights à la Robin Hood for the downtrodden crossing his path. A chaste, unspoken love story sprung up previously between the lead and fencing instructor Kaoru. From local, personal battles, the ante rises for Kenshin as a frail, newborn Japan is threatening to split once again. Shishio, accumulating a mini-army, is the Joker wanting upheaval. Home Minister Lord Toshimichi Ookubo (Kazufumi Miyazawa) tasks Kenshin to murder one last time.    

Samurai assassination mission, in a time when guns have begun to proliferate, has the air of the dying of the Wild West. Industrial revolution is on the horizon. Fierce swordplay does not drown out a melancholy tinge.

Stripped-down plot drive is enticingly built on, by adding a plethora of formidable adversaries:
- Sojiro Seta (Ryunisuke Kamiki) is Shishio’s lieutenant, and as a whirlwind actually bests Kenshin in a breathtaking melee.
- Added to the foes are lethal mercenaries the “Ten Swords”.
- Makimachi Misao (Tao Tsuchiya) is a female ninja thief covetous of the lead’s (unusual back-blade) weapon.
- Throw in Aoshi Sinomori (Yusuke Iseya), another assassin from the decade-gone civil war, channelling hate into hunting and duelling Kenshin, and you certainly have two movies worth of exciting possibilities.
Why have one single tough henchman, say from a James Bond film, when you can have a brigade?

Action aficionados will be on the edge of their seat. Shame then we have to wait for part three. As Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) states, in X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, “Patience isn’t my strongest suit”.    

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