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Samurai X - The Motion Picture (Rurouni Kenshin) Actor: Samurai X Number of Items: 1 Format: Color, Animated Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Running Time: 90 minutes Studio: A.D. Vision Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2001-03-27 Buy from Amazon

Customer Reviews: Total numer of reviews: 80 Average rating: 4.0 "Enjoyable but not the Best Kenshin" Samurai X The Motion Picture is an interesting movie that features some of the better post Kyoto fighting but other than that the movie itself in fairly unremarkable. The movie begins with a flashback of Kenshin as the Battousai in the waning days of the Tokugawa Shogunate. He fights and kills a rival clan and one of its master swordsmen. It is a good fight, short but well done. This segment is done in muted colors with the exception of the blood which looks almost neon red. The movie features most of the characters we have come to expect throughout the Kyoto story arc-Sano, Kaoru, Yahiko, and Saito. The movie revolves around Takami, a central figure of the rival clan featured in the opening sequence. He is man riddled with guilt over the death of his friend. Now he wishes to topple the Meji government to bring a "true restoration." In the end the movie has some great fight scenes, a few comical moments, and a solid enough story that keeps the movie rolling along. The English voice cast is different than that of the Series, so if you prefer the English dub, well suffice to say it leaves ALOT to be desired. The anime purists will tell you watch it in Japanese with the subtitles anyway. The reason I did not rate it higher was that this movie lacked some of the charm of the Series and the fights, while very well done, were not that numerous and the movie does plod a bit because of the lack of action. If the characters inroduced in this movie were also better developed then the action could have been absent but not missed. As it is the movie is good but not great. Hope this helps. "Better than I thought it would be" In my opinion, Rurouni Kenshin is in my top 3 anime series of all time. Filled with humor, action, lovable characters, great storylines(although the sumo wrestler from season 1 was odd). So hearing of this movie, having watched the pre tv-OVA's, decided to watch this. Despite certain things that nagged me, this is a very good film to watch. It starts with a flashback as a man named Gentatsu is killed by Kenshin, otherwise known as Hitokiri Battousai, a feared assassin and master swordsman. Back to present day, Kenshin and his 3 friends from the series(minus Megumi) are in a city. There they meet Takimi, an equally good swordsmen. Kenshin later finds out that Takimi is haunted by the death of his friend Gentatsu and wants to get rid of Japan's government. Kenshin finds himself in a predicament as not only does he have to stop Takimi from starting a war, he's got to stop Takimi and not kill him over the wishes of Toki, a woman who secretly loves him. Phew. It's easier to watch. Bit of storyline details. This takes place during the Kyoto Arc after Kenshin has met Saito, and after Sanosuke learns a new punch. It was rather sad to not see Megumi but you do see Ayume and and Sazume so that's a plus. Animation's great(although the blood looks odd in some parts) and Kenshin oddly looks a bit different here. Now for some bad stuff. The killing of Tentatsu is repeated many times throughout the film. While it is a reminder of the problems of Kenshin and Takimi, you don't have to have it 5 times, literally. Another thing is the dub. I watched the English dub and it's rather bad. One thing that made Rurouni Kenshin funny was Kenshin having a darker voice when he was about to fight and a more lighthearted voice during the slapstick moments, then of course there's "oro". And Sanosuke has a bit of an australian accent which doesn't sound right. However, Kenshin's english voice is good despite him not saying "oro" once. If you're a big Kenshin, you might as well check it out, won't hurt. If you're not, I recommend the watching the series up until the first half of Season 1 and if you want to know about Saito, watch some of Season 2 but I recommend watching it. "It's alright." Samurai x the motion picture is alright,the only reason I bought it was because I am a big rurouni kenshin fan and because I needed some to waste my money.The story starts out with a backround of kenshins life during the revolution(CAUTION:this scene comes out a few times so you might get tired of seeing it).Then later Kenshin and his friend's meet up with a guy named Shigure that was also in the revlution 10 years ago.My favorite scene was when Kenshin fighting shigure in the last battle in the whole movie. This feature is preety much about revenge and making a name for them selves, it's actually very stupid.Like I said in my review the story is alright the fighting was alright the movie is alright I just did not like the dubbing it was just horrible I just had to ger used to it.Only get this if yu are a true rurouni kenshin fan like I am. "Actually this is more "Rurouni Kenshin: The Motion Picture"" At the start of "Samurai X: The Motion Picture" ("Rurôni Kenshin: Ishin shishi e no Requiem") we are clearly in the same bloody world of "Samurai X: Betrayal" and "Samurai X: Trust." But then the titles come along and we are back to the world of "Rurôni Kenshin" the series, with Kaoru Kamiya, Sanosuke Sagara, and Yahiko Myôjin on the train to Yokohama. Apparently the violent prologue was only a reminder of Kenshin's life as the "Hitokiri Battousai" ("the man who slashes even as he draws his sword"). Within the context of the character's history the point of this story is to contrive a situation in which Kenshin Himura might break his vow and actually kill somebody with his reverse blade sword. As is often the case in the series although the war against the Tokugawa Shogunate ended years earlier with the Meiji Restoration there are those who are not happy with the new world order in Japan. Shigare Takimi is haunted by the death of his friend Takatsuki Gentatsu and now leads a band of desparate rebels who intended to kill a foreign ambassador. But when Kenshin helps to protect Takatsuki Toki from the brutality of foreign sailors, the two men become friends. Shigure asks Kenshime to take care of Toki if anything should ever happen to him. Of course it is a small world even in Japan Toki is the sister of Gentatsu, who was killed by Kenshin (in the prologue). Still, there are plans within plans in Meiji Japan as someone else is trying to use Shigure to his own ends and in the end it seems inevitable that Shigure and Kenshin will cross swords. This is another example of a "Rurôni Kenshin" story in which the stranger with a past whose path has crossed our hero before ends up being the most interesting character. It also remind those of us who enjoyed the anime series that things had ended there with Kaoru and Kenshin finally getting together and now we have apparently reset to an earlier time (the trip to Yokohama) and we can only ask, what is up with that? Still, you have to admit that this is "movie" version is representative of the series, where a long string of former foes cross Kenshin's path once again. I accidentally started watching the movie with the English dub and the English subtitles and kept it going just because there were so few times when they came close to matching. So if you are not enthralled by the sword fighting and the human drama you can check out the dueling translations. "Why'd they have to ruin it?" I saw the whole Kenshin series before buying the movie, and let me tell you the voices from the series were terrific! However in this movie, they changed all the voices! I could tolerate Kenshin's new voice since it sounded a little similar to his old voice, but everyone else's just plain sucked. I watched it in English first and didn't like it, but then I watched it in Japanese to find it much better (even though I watched the whole series in English). If you want to give it a chance in English, go ahead but you will probably just end up hating it. Watch it subbed. Anyway now that I'm done with my rant, let me review the actual movie. It wasn't that special, just an extremely long Kenshin episode. There's waaay too much talking and not enough action, but the few times they fight are pretty cool. The quality of the animation seems sloppier than in the series, which was a suprise since this is a movie. It doesn't seem that much more fluid than the series either, but the series was done very well so I'm not complaining that much. All of the music was the same from the series (other than the opening song and ending song) so that was a bit of a dissapointment. The extras are lacking as well. The only extras are a trailer for the movie, a trailer for the Samurai X OVA's (or OAV, whatever you wanna call it), and some trailers for other ADV Dvd's. Nothing exciting. Overall this is a pretty average movie. I had very high expectations for it since I'm a huge fan of the series, so I was pretty dissapointed when I first saw it. Don't think very highly of it when you first watch it and you probably won't dislike it as much as I do. By the way, this movie does not have anything to do with the Samurai X OVA's. This is a movie that takes place during the Kyoto arc of the Kenshin series. Why they decided to name it 'Samurai X the Movie' and not 'Rurouni Kenshin the Movie' is a mystery to me, but keep this in mind so you won't be confused when/if you decide to watch it.