Task 4 - Film Research and Review (Film Theory)

1.1 Introduction

Samurai X or Rurounin Kenshin is a well-known story in Japan preferably for it close resemblance of a real life historical events during the Meiji-era (1878). The plot of the story goes as, during the early days of the Meiji era, Himura Kenshin participated in the Bakumatsu war as an assassin with the name of “Hitokiri Battousai” and is feared by samurais and shoguns alike. After the war in won and the revolution is ended, Hitokiri Battousai dropped his sword and disappeared for 10 years. He then was found and joined a young girl named Kaoru Kamiya an owner of a dojo and settles down after an incident with her, along the way he finds himself befriending more and more people ranging from Sanosuke Sagara a mercenary, Myojin Yahiko a descendant of a former samurai line and a doctor Megumi Tanaka. As they live through live they fought together multiple times and go through many resistance together including a former assassin Jinnei Udoh and also leader of the Oniwaban Shinobi, Shinomori Aoshi. Several months after Kenshin discovered that a samurai named Shishio Makoto who worked in the shadows as the successor of Kenshin is trying to create a revolution in Kyoto through a rival samurai known as Saito Hajime, now known as Fujita Goro. As he was requested to “assassinate” Shishio Makoto to save the current government even when he vowed to never kill again, he accepts and went to Kyoto alone. Along his journey he met Makimachi Misao, a ninja of the Oniwaban and helped him to find his way in Kyoto and finally encounter Shishio Makoto and fight him to the death only to have Shishio engulfed in flames due to his body heat.

Samurai X

In the anime version of the story, it is 94 episodes long and it consist of 3 different arcs/storyline namely “The Wandering Samurai”, “Kyoto Inferno” and “Tales of Meiji”. This version of the story is very detailed and long stretched in terms of the narrative. Released in 1996 – 1998, the Samurai X franchise is mainly focused on the anime side of the story with comedy and unrelated fillers in between to break tension between main plots. In the “Wandering Samurai” arc, it tells the story where Kenshin first meet with Kaoru and the rest of the members in the story, Myojin Yahiko, Sanosuke Sagara and Megumi Tanaka. The main plot here is the part where Kenshin meets with Shinomori Aoshi and he will contribute later in the other arcs.

“Kyoto Inferno” is the main plot of the whole story as it relates with Shishio Makoto the shadow assassin who is the successor of Hitokiri Battousai. Here Kenshin is teamed up with Saito Hajime to defeat the powerful samurai who people think its immortal and also he has collected 10 warriors known as Juppongatana “the 10” which is very powerful each and Kenshin will have to defeat them to get to Shishio and defeat him.

“Tales of Meiji” arc is the part where all of these are just filler stories that tells his story what happened after the Kyoto Inferno arc.

Fig.1: Samurai X

Rurounin Kenshin

This is the live action version of the story, where it is split into 3 movies long Rurounin Kenshin, Rurounin Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno and Rurounin Kenshin: The Legend Ends. The live action has a more serious tone to its plot and characters and less comedic in its narrative. The live action version only focuses on mainly the “Kyoto Inferno” part where Kenshin is probably his most difficult task, defeating Shishio Makoto. Rurounin Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno and Rurounin Kenshin: The Legend Ends are actually 1 movie split into 2 different parts and Rurounin Kenshin the first movie, is basically “The Wandering Samurai” arc from the anime cut short. In this movie, the action, dramatization and expression are all more realistic and less cartoony feel.

Fig. 2: Rurounin Kenshin

1.1 Character Design

Samurai X

Character List

· Kenshin Hiruma

· Kaoru Kamiya

· Sanosuke Sagara

· Yahiko Myojin

· Saito Hajime

· Shishio Makoto

· Seta Soujiro

· Dr. Gensai

· Megumi Tanaka

· Misao Makimachi

· Shinomori Aoshi

In Samurai X, character design are hand drawn and animated even so the characters are based on a real life person in history. They are being drawn and created with perks and characteristics of a real person in history based on books. The characters are drawn with the generic anime style

Fig.3: Rurounin Kenshin characters

Even despite they mostly look the same there are also details that makes them different from one another like hairstyle for example each character has their own hairstyle that differs from other and also the clothing that they wear. These are the miss-en-scene that defines the character for who they are and what type of personality they have within them. Himura Kenshin is a samurai and like all samurais in Japan they have a ponytail so does Kenshin as well to signify his position and character as a samurai but he has a cross-scar on his left cheek indicating a battle wound or a story behind the cause of the wound, a back story of his life, a past that he holds with him.

Fig.4: Kenshin Himura face

Another example of this is Saito Hajime, a rival samurai of Kenshin during the Bakumatsu war. He is also an assassin known as the Shinsengumi and was wildly known as the Wolf, his character is a cold-looking, calm and heartless person. The anime character of him are drawn and characterized the same way.

Fig.5: Saito Hajime face

Along with his character, his eyes are filled with the looks of a killer as the character is, and a sharp shaped face to give a villainy feel to it as well unlike the other of Kenshin friends who are more friendly in that manner. His hair is all combed into place and in gentle manner to show a calm side of him as his character does not freaky out or easily taunted, a cool guy personality.

For a next character would be Sanosuke Sagara, this character is a very hot tempered and feisty character that is easily taunted and acts very rashly without thinking. Some could say he thinks with his fists, Sanosuke goes through obstacles by punching instead of talking. His character design focuses on upper body strength.

Fig.6: Sanosuke Sagara

Along with his body physique his hairstyle is spiky portraying a fiery character that acts with impulse. Character wise in the movie it shows lots of diversity in looks and personality.

Rurounin Kenshin

Character List

· Kenshin Himura

· Kaoru Kamiya

· Sanosuke Sagara

· Yahiko Myojin

· Megumi Tanaka

· Saito Hajime

· Shishio Makoto

· Seta Soujiro

· Shinomori Aoshi

· Misao Makimachi

Now in Rurounin Kenshin, it is the live action version of the anime therefore the characters must have some resemblance to the original anime version but with the real life look. One of the reason why Rurounin Kenshin is considered to be one of the best Manga/Anime to live action version is the adaptation. The characters in Rurounin Kenshin is almost 99% completely followed the anime version as Kotaku, a website dedicated to Japan, Korea and Gaming reviewed the movie and said “The Live Action Rurouni Kenshin Movie is a Nearly Perfect Film Adaptation” (Kotaku, 2012). Reason behind this is that they use and followed the source material closely.

Fig.7: Rurounin Kenshin Actor

The actor for Kenshin Himura, Takeru Sato portrayed the character nicely and accurately although he cannot give the exact same look as the anime version he does give that exact feel. Kenshin despite being an assassin in his past, here in the story he wants to repent for his sins and acts as a protector of the weak, being kind, helpful and cheerful to those around him. In the live action movie he does the same, being humble and kind to those around kind of contradict the way Hitokiri Battousai is described as a cold-blooded killer.

The rest of the characters are also spot on, on their personality though a bit rushed due to the time constraint they have in the live action movie rather than the 94 episodic anime. The next character is Sanosuke Sagara, in the anime he is displayed as a person who acts rashly without thinking, loud and rude, here in the movie he is exactly the same.

Fig.8: Rurounin Kenshin Sano Live Action

From his thuggish look to the way he move, you can see the similarities between the character in the live action movie and the character in the anime.

1.1 Narrative

Samurai X

Narration in the anime version does make the experience much more engaging as they have enough time to tell events in details but also runs the risk of having too much time and unnecessary fillers. Samurai X has 3 different arcs and each arc has their own main plot and fillers to prolong and break the tension between main plots. This is because of the anime genre itself, the narration is this series is very detailed as the character does flashbacks to explain the events that are happening or have thought hearing session for the audience to see and hear what is going on in the character’s head at the moment.

Fig.9: Samurai X Episode 10

In the picture above shows a scene in episode 10 where the character is doing something without saying anything while the other characters who are in the scene explains what is he doing.

Fig.10: Samurai X Episode 10

In this scene the character Kenshin poses in a stance that he normally won’t use and surprised everyone, Kaoru who is a sword-fighting instructor explains the stance to the characters and what is it about. This narration is detailed and well-paced as the audience will understand the happenings in the scene but a little less realistic due to the timing, some of these scenes are very long and the action part of it is very short making audiences wondering “How did she managed to say all that in just a few seconds?”

Fig.11: Samurai X Episode 18

Fig.12: Samurai X Episode 18

In the series of picture above, the scene goes as the boy is holding a sword which is quite a distance between him and Kenshin, just as that scene passes by Kenshin is attacked by thugs who are infront of him at the same the Yahiko threw the sword at Kenshin and the sword still manages to reach Kenshin before the thug did.

Fig.13: Samurai X Episode 18

Despite all that the way it is told and paced, the experience is not affected and the enjoyment is still visible.

Rurounin Kenshin

In this live action movie the narration is cut down short and precise due to time constraint, but not confusing to audiences. The one thing about the live action movie is that the story somewhat starts weak as not much narration is done, the starting sequence is a battle between two force during the Bakumatsu war and Kenshin is seen battling Saito Hajime on a battlefield with lots of other armies soldiers. Then the sequence ends with Kenshin moving away from the battlefield after he stuck his sword into the ground.

Fig.14: Rurounin Kenshin, 2012

Fig.15: Rurounin Kenshin, 2012

Audience that never watched the anime, or do not have the knowledge about the story will somewhat be lost in parts of the movie as the story moves at quite fast pace. Even so the narrative of the movie is also well sequenced and character development is short but acceptable. Character introduction is very much skipped as there are not much of introduction done other than the name is shown.

Skipping most of the funny and comedic moments from the anime, this movie has a heavy feeling of seriousness due to its life and death scenarios even so the movie still manages to put in funny moments that breaks way from the seriousness (Kotaku, 2012).

Fig.16: Rurounin Kenshin, 2012

For example during a fight scene, Kenshin evaded Sano’s attack making him running towards the river and Kenshin grabs his clothing to save him from dropping into the river.

The first movie was well paced, but however the second and third movie is brought up to speed as it contains more action than the first. Even so the entire 3 movies does not feel like 3 different movie but the same movie split into 3 different parts, Rurounin Kenshin (2012), Rurounin Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno (August, 2014), Rurounin Kenshin (September, 2014).

1.1 Miss-En-Scene

Miss-en-scene helps to set the mood and settings of the movie, it consist of the clothing, background, music, lighting and etc. This makes the movie more believable to the audience.

Samurai X

Set in Feudal Japan in the 1800’s, the series focuses on the story in Japan therefore there are many Japan culture reference in the series. The series has the setting of Feudal Japan from the clothing that they wear to the architectural design on the buildings.

Fig.17: Samurai X, Episode 36

Fig.18: Japanese Building

Fig.19: Japanese Interior Building

Samurai X has everything about the background to the environment accurate about the 1800’s Japan era. The clothing of the character also give the olden Japanese era where everyone wears this long dress like clothing also known as kimono.

Fig.20: Kimono Dress

Fig.21: Samurai X, Episode 2

Most of the characters in the series wore this kind of clothing rather than the modernize clothing that Japanese people wear now. The kimono is a cultural clothing that Japanese people wear for festivities even in modern times as it is a type of cultural practice to them. However in 1800’s is also where the western forces starts to influence the Japanese culture, guns and gunpowder have been introduce to the Japanese people and also western clothing the series also has characters that shows that influence especially the government officials in the series.

Fig.22: Samurai X, Episode 29

Saito Hajime is the series is a police official working for the government to deal with its problem with the former Imperialist samurais therefore he is mostly seen in westernized clothing like a suit rather than the Japanese kimono that the samurais wear even he is a samurai himself.

Rurounin Kenshin

Similar to the anime series the miss-en-scene here is also strong and follow very closely to the anime series in almost every way from the clothing to the character design as well. It has the feudal Japan feel right in the movie in its background, environment and people. The feel is just right as the characters and the actors/actresses does make the whole setting believable. Reason behind this is that Japanese people are strong in culture and honor, they favors family name to their own this is shown in the beginning of the movie as Kaoru Kamiya is trying to find the person using her father’s sword fighting style to commit crime and tarnish the name even though she would not be able to defeat him.

Fig.23: Rurounin Kenshin, 2012

This kind of act would not happen in the modern age due to the changes in time and education along with cultural advancement.

In the way the characters are portrayed they did not move too far in visuals of the characters. The clothing of the characters are closely accurate and also their characteristics. Kenshin Himura although used to be a cold-blooded killer than is feared by all, after the revolution he give up killing and turned into a wandering samurai that helps people along the way in his travels he shows a helpless and clumsy person to the people around making him a harmless person.

Fig.24: Samurai X, Episode 2

Fig.25: Rurounin Kenshin, 2012

In the live action movie version the story uses a more serious weight in the narration as it is a movie about life and death, the lighting is the movie is fairly dark most of the times. It helps to set the mood that everything said and happens in the scene is very serious and are not something that the characters can take lightly.

Fig.26: Rurounin Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno, 2014

As we can see here even indoors in broad daylight the lighting is still damp and low. The entire movie trilogy is very moody and uses a lot of cool colours

Fig.27: Rurounin Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno, 2014

Fig.28: Rurounin Kenshin: The Legend Ends, 2014

Environment wise the movie gives a very good Feudal Japan settings where the town and cities has the Japanese wooden houses with crowds of people on the streets walking around, restaurants with cloths at the entrance with Japanese wording.

Fig.29: Rurounin Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno, 2014

1.1 Cinematography

Cinematography is the method of how the film is being shot from the camera, the angle and lighting effect all gives the mood and precise frame or shot for that excellent feel when watched.

Samurai X

Given its 94 episode long period, the series has a lot of time to show details and narrate the story. This makes fight scenes much longer than it should by slowing down movements to give exact movement details, character-in-head thought scene and also long exposition segments.

Fig.30: Samurai X, Episode 2

This shot is an example of cinematography whereby the character talks about peace and relaxing, the camera pans backwards from the character to expand the view from a tight scene where the whole character fits the whole screen and slowly becomes small in a big empty room while drinking tea giving out that relaxing and peaceful expression.

Fig.31: Samurai X, Episode 5

Here is scene where the character Sanosuke charge at Kenshin with a large sword in the next few seconds the scene changes to a different perspective from another 2 character on the hills giving a different take on the scene.

Fig.32: Samurai X, Episode 5

Fig.33: Samurai X, Episode 5

Then the scene changes to a part where both of the fighting characters faces to give a serious settings from the comedic parts of the episode.

Shots wise the anime series has a lot of close up shots due to its focus on characters reactions to certain scenes. And the series also has a lot of fighting scenes each with different way of showing it to the audiences.

Fig.34: Samurai X, Episode 5

Close up shots are used to zoom in to the character face where their expression is seen clearly while they talking or explain certain plot or give out information to audience as to what is going on screen, this way audience have a clear point as to who is talking instead of showing 2 characters at the same time in a long wide shot where audience can’t even see their mouths. Showing the expression while the character talks on a certain subject, the effect is much better than just listening to the dialogue.

Fig.35: Samurai X, Episode 9

Here the character is shouting angrily at another character by closing up to his face, we can see he is angry along with the sound level in the voice acting it gives out the perfect anger feel.

Fighting scene in this series is mostly exaggerated due to its anime genre to give out a dramatic feel and enjoyment. Here is an example of a fight scene that is simple yet acceptable, first the scene is set up with tension and anticipation that something is about to happen while a character is speaking, at the time of the action the shot is cut away from the focus point to another scene (the flying sword) making audience to wonder what is happening then at the final shot the scene goes back to the characters showing what happens.

Fig.36: Samurai X, Episode 11

The scenes are disjointed but somehow works as the series lets your imagination to fill in the empty slots sort of like showing you bit and pieces of a picture while your brain imagine the full picture an interactive way of watching a movie/film.

Rurounin Kenshin

Fig.37: Kotaku review, Rurounin Kenshin, 2012

“Right from the start Rurounin Kenshin shows its excellent direction and fight choreography. The fights are very fast and exciting, with both changing choreography and camera techniques used to keep the action consistently fresh and interesting.

Moreover, everything is done with practical effects-meaning there is no CG (except for the blood spray) in the entire movie. There is some amount of wirework, but unlike that in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, it is used for making the character more incredibly fast or slide across the ground instead of making them fly-adding a bit of spectacle without looking fake. This makes everything in the film seem far more real and entertaining than many recent CG fests.” (– Kotaku, 2012)

A website named Kotaku, an admin wrote this for the third movie “The Third Movie has Action Scene that will Leave You Awestruck” (Eisenbeis, R. 2014). One of the reason why the live action adaptation of the anime series is so good it’s the fighting scenes, while most of our modern fighting movies are all done with a partial of CGI in play, Rurounin Kenshin does everything is practical like what it is said at the section above.

As a live action film, the movie cannot use the effects of the anime version to act its fighting scene as it would be completely unrealistic destroying the live action part. To compensate it’s less dramatic and exaggerating fights, the fight scenes in the movie are done with real swordplay and good camera shot angles.

Fig.38: Kotaku review, Rurounin Kenshin: The Legend Ends, 2014

“In both of the reviews of the two previous Kenshin films, I raved about how good their practical (i.e., not CG) fighting effects were. But this film blew the previous ones right out of the water. While the film starts out slow-very slow, truth be told-the film’s entire final third (about 40 minutes) is one long unbroken action scene.” (– Kotaku, 2014)

In my opinion, Rurounin Kenshin is actually the BEST practical action movies I’ve seen the reason to this is that the fighting choreography is excellent along with some wires to help the characters fly around after being kicked the way the movie is shot makes the scenes so much enjoyable and fun.

Fig.38: Rurounin Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno, 2014

In the movie fighting scenes are shot with distance that is not too far where we can’t see what is happening or too close where we also don’t know what is happening. The shots are made at the right distance and throughout the entire 3 movies there are not one moment where the audience would say “what just happened?”

In addition to the great shots, the movie also slows down frames at the right time and not over use slow down time shots.

Fig.39: Rurounin Kenshin: The Legend Ends, 2014

In this particular scene, Kenshin uses an attack called Kuzu Ryu Sen (9 Flashing Dragon) which is a 9 hit slash attack that is executed in a very fast speed. After the first 3 hits, the movie is then slow down for the remaining 6 hits giving out that effect that how damaging each hit is.

2.0 Conclusion

In a conclusion to the Rurounin Kenshin/Samurai X movie, both movies has its very own good and bad points to consider however because one is an anime series the other is a 2 hour length movie, there will be people that likes one and dislike the other.

For a beginning thought, the anime version is much longer and has a lot of extra story and humor to laugh at and the narration of the story touches all characters in the story as each character gets a time to shine but the anime version also is very childish in nature as the progression is very predictable.

The live action on the other hand is much shorter and the story is mainly focused on Kenshin himself, the other characters are just supporting characters althought Sanosuke did get a focused fight in the third movie but in the end the movie still feels like it is focusing on Kenshin but the live action also has a very good action scene and will be loved by people who like to watch fighting scenes.

3.0 Reference

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Anon., 2012. Kimono. [Online]
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Anon., n.d. Rurounin Kenshin character. [Online]
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Anon., n.d. Rurounin Kenshin Sano live action. [Online]
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Anon., n.d. Sanosuke Sagara. [Online]
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Eisenbeis, R., 2012. Kotaku. [Online]
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Eisenbeis, R., 2014. Kotaku. [Online]
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Eisenbeis, R., 2014. Kotaku. [Online]
Available at: http://kotaku.com/the-second-kenshin-film-is-just-as-good-as-the-first-1615619358
[Accessed 2nd April 2015].

Rurounin Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno. 2014. [Film] Directed by Keishi Otomo. Japan: s.n.

Rurounin Kenshin: The Legend Ends. 2014. [Film] Directed by Keishi Otomo. Japan: s.n.

Rurounin Kenshin. 2012. [Film] Directed by Keishi Otomo. Japan: s.n.

Samurai X. 1996-1998. [Film] Directed by Kazuhiro Furuhashi. Japan: Studio Gallop, Studio Deen.