Rurouni Kenshin – the story of a lifetime – has now been more or less completely told in live-action format. The final two movies were released this year, with one of them available on Netflix (at least in India). In total, there are 5 movies:
- Rurouni Kenshin (Aug 2012)
- RK: Kyoto Inferno (Aug 2014)
- RK: The Legend Ends (Sep 2014)
- RK: The Final (Apr 2021)
- RK: The Beginning (Jun 2021)
I watched the fourth movie last week on Netflix. This part of the story has not been animated yet and I was pleasantly surprised that it has been made into a motion picture. If you have not read the manga, this movie may seem a little too fast-paced, with barely any logic or reason to some of the behaviours of the characters. But if you have read the manga, you will realize that this movie IS too fast-paced to give justice to all the motivations and reasons behind the character’s ‘well-justified’ behaviours. It also does away with certain twists and reveals in the original manga to simplify the story and fit ‘everything’ into 2 hours. And quite disappointingly, the words “Amakakeru Ryu no Hirameki” are not heard even once.
Of course, it is no one’s fault in particular. It just so happens that this medium is ill-suited to tell the original story with all the twists and turns, motives and reasons, grief and gloom, love and hatred, trust and betrayal, crime and atonement, “Thank you, Sorry and Goodbye”s.
