A Review of "Rurouni Kenshin Part 2: Kyoto Inferno (2014)"

 

Due to the massive success of the first film, it is no surprise that it was going to get a sequel. However, it wasn’t just one sequel but a two parter sequel that was filmed back to back. I’m not a huge fan of part 1 films as they tend to drag but is this the case for “Kyoto Inferno”? 
Director Keishi Ōtomo, Cinematographer Takuro Ishizaka, composer Naoki Satō and nearly the entire cast from the first film return for these sequels.
so I’m going to try and avoid retreading all the praises I gave them from my review of the first film here: Review of Rurouni Kenshin Part 1

The story is simple,  Kenshin reluctantly agrees to go to Kyoto to help stop Makoto Shishio and his warriors from overthrowing the new government.  Makoto Shishio (Tatsuya Fujiwara) has one of the most amazing villain introductions in a film ever. He is WAY more of a threat than any of the villains in the first film and genuinely seems like a good reason for Kenshin to return. In that fact I have to give lots of praise to Tatsuya for giving such a great performance in making this guy seem crazy and a threat.
A majority of the new characters are great Sojiro Seta (Ryunosuke Kamiki) is creepy and the actor portrays this well and also manages to make his swordplay rival that of Himura in a believable way. Misao Makimachi (Tao Tsuchiya) is a lovable but badass ninja. Okina (Min Tanaka) is a badass old ninja man with wisdom and care. He even has a really cool badass fight scene and despite the actors age still puts the effort into the fight even if there are obvious cuts to a stuntman. There are so many new characters introduced but somehow the directors manages to cover all of them fairly well and evenly. The director manages this sudden huge cast without bombarding us the audience with a massive exposition and still make us care or hate these new characters.
Aoshi Shinomori (Yūsuke Iseya) is the only character I have a slight problem with and its not because of the actor. Aoshi was meant to be in the first film and was meant to lose his friends in the battle against Himura Kenshin which is why he decides to hunt him down. Of course the director cut that out because he filmed the first one as a standalone film with no sequel plans. However, this creates a writing problem in this film as Aoshi is very important for future Rurouni Kenshin stories so cutting him out entirely was not an option. This means they change his backstory so that he lost his friends to a battle 10 years ago instead but he still wants to hunt Himura Kenshin because he wants to be the strongest or something. This makes his character less sympathetically and more just kind of crazy. He does a lot of cruel things for what is kind of a stupid reason in the film.
The existing cast and characters continue to do a great job even Kaoru (Emi Takei) who I had issue with manages to get a couple good scenes in.  Megumi Takani (Yū Aoi) is the only existing character to sadly get pushed aside in this film but for the sake of the story, it makes sense.

One aspect this sequel does better is the pacing. In the first film there were parts that slowed the film down but in the sequel, it is one constant ride of thrill and excitement. Despite the film goes from an often unrelated plot to another, the plot points are all interesting enough to keep you invested. The score is more or less the same with one major new soundtrack, Makoto Shishio theme “Unmei - Meikai No Kodou“  which is so amazing and fitting for his character.
Another aspect of the sequel that is better is the fight scenes. The fights in this movie make the ones in the first movie feel like baby toys. Not only are there more different and unique type of fights but they also have all the amazing practical and complex choreography style of fighting. The stunt coordinator manages to make it somehow more exciting and still make every characters style of fighting unique from each other which makes for more cooler fights. My favorites fights are the one where Himura fights a dozen men cause of how fast pace it is yet it is still very clear which is also down to the set and costume department as it allows for the lead character to still be visible in the crowd. The Kyoto fight is also incredibly impressive due to how many are there and the beautiful cinematography.

Despite being the first part of a sequel, this movie is absolutely astounding. Everything that I loved in the first movie is vastly improved in this sequel. If I had to nitpick this movie then it would literally be one scene in the manga where Himura Kenshin has to make an important choice which is in this film but without being able to hear his thoughts like in the manga it just comes out as rather inconsequential in the film and is brushed away quite easily as well. However, that doesn’t really ruin anything in the film so I came out of this thinking “I really want to watch part 3 right now”.  This movie has all the thrills and excitement from the amazing sword fights and choreography with a tinge of character drama sprinkled on top and it came out as a film that even surpasses some of the big Hollywood films.