Non Rurouni Kenshin fans you can stop reading now.
I have been waiting since August trying to see if I can watch this in a cinema but no such luck. So the next best thing would be to wait for the DVD release which got ripped and uploaded early January. I somehow just suddenly remember about it and search for it and was totally glad that its available. Because the show is in Japanese and some translations are really totally dependent on the translator's choice of words of sentence construction, I think I might need to watch this a couple of times with different subtitles :p
For those who have not watched the movie, you should stop reading here because I am going to praise and criticize based on my opinion, there will DEFINITELY be spoilers ...
As I was extremely eager to watch this, I can only try to draw comparison with my recollection of the anime and to try to enjoy it. It started off not too bad but for those who don't know the story at all might have the same questions as I did. From beginning till end, it was never properly explained why Kaoru's martial arts discipline was "attacked" by the so called "Battousai". To me it can only be deduced that it is a ploy by Kanryuu's men to try to get dojo land on the cheap.
In the interest of time, the story of how the characters got along was cut short BUT they had the time to re-visit how Kenshin got the cross scars =X IMHO that in itself are the OVAs, a short movie would have made more money :p
Why the heck is the priest in this movie??? If the priest is in this movie then Sano will most likely not get better and will just remain as a lame street fighter. I can only imagine that the second movie must have the fist fight with Saitoh just to push him over the edge a little to understand that he must get better especially with defense. As a member of the Sekihotai, its a joke that he got along so well with Kenshin without being awaken his complete defeat to Kenshin. Sigh ... For those who don't notice or know what the Chinese/Japanese character that he wears on his back,
惡 which means evil.
If the masked guy is Aoshi ... then I am utterly and bitterly disappointed. He was like so damn lame ... Almost made to look like a fool. He is another character who is supposed to push Kenshin off his limit to return to his Battousai nature but he got shrugged off like a better than average fighter zzz
How the fuck does holding a katana in am abnormal style (katana is facing downwards) makes him seem to be more serious??? Although by doing so, he does gets to hit back at his opponent. Its a harder stance to attack because the blade runs parallel to the arm and this means that you have to get close to the opponent which often times means its more dangerous. This was shown a few times in the movie but to me it really does not make much sense to me. I think in the anime, he will assume his Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu stance when he really wants to get serious.
Saito is normally introduced as "Shinsen Gumi Sanban Taicho, Saito Hajime" (Shinsen Gumi Third Division Captain/Leader, Saitoh Hajime) but in the movie, the guy who said this was cut down right with just 1 swing not long after finishing that intro. His Gatotsu was not even done justice ... shown without any description. Ayam disappoint. Saito in the movie looks fat ... =_= though he does his best to impersonate the cool character.
The movie did not end with an indicator that there will be a sequel ie to go after Shishio Makoto. Since they have cut out so much story, I think there can be only a few movies. They tried to squeeze too much into 1 movie and although most of the storyline stayed true but it just begs to differ a little too much for my taste. I thought I would jizz watching it but the wave was just not enough to send me over :p
I'm not sure if you guys noticed but the katana used by Kenshin is slightly more curved at the hilt. That left me a with a big query. Why is it like that??? Was it caused by the many bodies it cut through? Was his strength so powerful that it was curved from too much use? @_@
