Rurôni Kenshin: Meiji kenkaku roman tan: Tsuioku hen (1999) (V)

Director:

Kazuhiro Furuhashi

Writers:

L.B. Bartholomee (american version)
Masashi Sogo (screenplay)

Genre:

Animation | Action | Adventure | Drama | Horror | Romance

Plot:

In the era of Japan's Meiji Restoration, an assassin regains his humanity.

Plot Keywords:

Assassin | Love | Scar | Heroism | Sword Fight

Cast

Mayo Suzukaze	...	Kenshin Himura
Junko Iwao	...	Tomoe Yukishiro
Nozomu Sasaki	...	Enishi Yukishiro
Masami Suzuki	...	Shinta
Shûichi Ikeda	...	Seijûrô Hiko
Tomokazu Seki	...	Kogorô Katsura
Wataru Takagi	...	Shinsaku Takasugi
Ryûsei Nakao	...	Îzuka
Hirotaka Suzuoki	...	Hajime Saitô
Yôko Ogai	...	Sôshi Okita (as Akari Hibino)
Minoru Uchida	...	Tatsumi
Tetsuya Iwanaga	...	Akira Kiyosato
Satoshi Tsuruoka	...	Jubei Shigekûra
Mitsuaki Hoshino	...	Katagai
Hiromi Setsu	...	Ikumatsu

Also Known As:

Rurôni Kenshin (Japan) (short title)
Rurôni Kenshin: Reminicense (USA) (second part title)
Rurôni Kenshin: Romantic Tales from the Meiji Era (USA) (first part title)
Samurai X: Trust & Betrayal (USA) (director's cut)
Samurai X: Trust and Betrayal (International: English title) (director's cut)

Runtime:

USA:120 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

English | Japanese

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

Singapore:M18 | USA:Not Rated | UK:15 | Australia:MA | South Korea:18 (cable rating) | Spain:13

Company:

SPE Visual Works

Trivia:

Although the of Kenshin's life depicted in this OVA series was also detailed in the original manga, the TV series "Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji kenkaku roman tan" (1996) never mentions Tomoe by name, but Hiko does mention ask Kenshin about his lost love at Tomoe's gravesite in Kyoto. The only characters aside from Kenshin that also appear in the TV series are Saito, Hiko, and assumedly Shishio (the unnamed assassin that kills the traitor near the end).

Quotes:

Seijûrô Hiko: You won't be alive long enough to remember my name.

Movie Connections:

References Braveheart (1995)

Blue Velvet spiced into Shogun Assassin

The movie Kenshin deserves it's place among the best of anime, it stands as a reminder of what animation is capable of. It is rare to find a Samurai/Shogun animation movie that contains such attention to detail. This is apparent in the way the movie takes it's time to build it's characters and develop their respective relationships, in fact very little time is devoted to the actual fights scenes with the numerous battles and duels being over in a blink of an eye. What the movie actually focuses on is the doomed love story that develops between Kenshin and Toroe and the numerous symbols within nature that depict the character's fates.

Kenshin is a true work of art that draws upon Japan's rich artistic history to create an epic tale of love and death. The movie incorporates distinctly Japanese arts within it's narrative, for example in this movie there is a strong emphasis on the depiction of the landscape, the changing of the seasons, the stoicism of the Japanese mentality. Through these artistic devices we see the tale unfold of an assassin who is torn between continuing his life of bloodshed or taking his chance to escape into a more quiet life away from the killings.

With all the emphasis on the artistic achievement of Kenshin it should also be mentioned that the movie also delivers on a purely entertaining level with blood splatter tinged into practically every scene, but what stands out even more is the spiritual aspect of the story that tells the audience -amongst other things- that what we do in life will eventually come to haunt us in our future.

A stunning poetic reflection of an often banal genre.