Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends | 4/5

SINGAPORE — It’s time to draw your katana one last time. Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends is the final instalment of the trilogy and it continues where the last film, Kyoto Inferno, left off.

Our hero and heroine, Kenshin Himura (Takeru Satoh) and Kaoru Kamiya (Emi Takei), are adrift in the sea during a storm after confronting the bandaged assassin known as Makoto Shishio (Tatsuya Fujiwara) onboard his ironclad dreadnought. The former samurai is then found washed ashore by his former teacher Hiko Seijuro (Masaharu Fukuyama). Kenshin finds renewed purpose and is intent on defeating Shishio but, as Seijuro points out, it’s going to be a difficult task given that Kenshin has vowed never to taken another person’s life.

In some way, The Legend Ends could be seen as part two of a two-part movie, a la Red Cliff or any of those movies that end Hollywood franchises (Twilight, Harry Potter, etc). Taken in that light, the slower pace of the first half of the movie — where Kenshin once again studies under his master, who spouts these pearls of philosophical wisdom — is understandable, since it’s more like a second act, the lull before the explosive storm that will be the third act.

The confrontation between Kenshin and Shishio is inevitable, of course, as the latter has strong-armed the new Japanese government into arresting Kenshin for his crimes when he was known as Battosai the killer. However, Kenshin gets by with a little help from his friends, and the spectacular showdown at the end of the film, with its extensive swordplay and action sequences, is one worthy not only of the manga and anime from which his movie series is based on, but of samurai movies in general.

Of course, that’s not to say there aren’t some questionable moments in the movie. Many characters featured in Kyoto Inferno have been relegated to mere cameos. The two ladies who made an impact in the previous movie, Megumi (Yu Aoi) and Kaoru, seem to be nothing more than footnotes, although the humorous Sanosuke Sagara (Munetaka Aoki) has a bit more to do in the film’s latter half.

Even the key antagonist Shishio has little screen time in the first half of the movie, which robs the film of some urgency. And the colourful 10 Swords, introduced in Kyoto Inferno as Shishio’s villainous team, have little to do other than act manic in the presence of their leader, with only the dapper fanatic Hoji Sadojima (Kenichi Takito) given something more than a five-minute spotlight.

Still, director Keishi Otomo manages to make The Legend Ends one highly enjoyable ride and all loose ends are cleverly tied up — albeit a bit too neatly sometimes. Some have said this series has reinvigorated the samurai genre, much like how Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon revived wuxia films, but even if it doesn’t spawn other samurai movies, it’s still a good way to finish. All good things must come to an end, so they say, and while there will be those who wish it were not so with Rurouni Keshin, fans will probably be pleased to see how the adventures of the red-headed pacifist warrior are resolved.