Rurouni Kenshin, Meiji Kenkaku Roman-tan or just simply Rurouni Kenshin 2012, is the movie live action version of the well loved manga and anime', Rurouni Kenshin (or in our country, Samurai X). Its story revolves around Kenshin Himura, a once notorious assassin of the government but is now living as a vagabond after he vowed to never to kill again. He is best known by the X-shaped scar on his cheek and red hair.

Growing up, I am familiar with Samurai X. I know the characters, I know how the story revolves since the anime' was being shown in our local channel everyday. But I was not really a fan to begin with. When the movie was shown 4 months after ot was shown in Japan, I dragged myself to watch it eventhough I was not sold at the trailer. The first time that I saw the trailer, I thought that everyone was miscasted. But hey, I was wrong.

I was surprised upon seeing the long lines in the cinema that I had to transfer to another mall just for me to be able to watch it. It was in a very limited run in our country (for 3 days only) and I think that adults who grew up watching Kenshin flocked the cinemas all at the same time. I was about to give up watching it because I really hate long lines but fortunately enough, I was able to get a ticket and watch it. My very first dilemma for the movie about the miscasting was washed away 2 minutes after the movie starts. Takeru Sato (Himura Kenshin) was perfect as that scrawny but deadly assassin as he moves like a lightning, throwing his sword to enemies like it was just nothing. Other supporting casts also did a very good job as I can easily identify them even with my vague memory of the anime as I was growing up.

The fight scenes were very well executed, it's as if the actors really put their hearts and souls to play their part effectively. And aside from the physical requirement for the characters, the actors also portray their roles with so much respect and dedication with the medium. I am not a native Japanese speaker and unfortunately, I found the English subtitles difficult to understand. I guess there are just Japanese words which is hard to translate into English so that's the outcome. The setting is perfect and the costumes are really detailed, you can tell that the movie has a big budget and is well thought of.

I just really don't understand why they picked Jin'ei as the main antagonist. Remembering the anime' while watching the movie, I can very well remember the most evil one as Shishio. Back then, I never thought they would come up with trilogy so I didn't blame myself why I was too pushy that time. Again, the fight was superb. There was a very minimal use with CGI and it's almost the whole action sequences are just executed perfectly with magnificent fight stunts and proper use of wires. It looks very raw but very realistic at the same time. The music used in every scene were perfect, you will find yourself humming with that female voice singing like a banshee. It was too effective that it will stick into your mind and stay there for quite a while.
It is just a bit difficult watching the movie together with Kenshin die-hard fans because they tend to nitpick with every scene in the movie. How it differs from the anime' or from the manga. But as a 'commoner', I really enjoyed the movie and thought that while it was adapted from a 90 episode anime', it is also a good stand-alone Samurai action movie. Also, after the tragedy that is called Dragon Ball Z live action adaptation, this local action version of the most loved Samurai is exceptional.

This movie has woken up the Kenshin fan in me. I ended up watching this in cinema 3 times. The difficulty of getting tickets was so worth it though. I found myself buying DVD's of the anime' series, downloading the OVAs, and even researching about Takeru Sato, Emi Takei and the band who sang the official theme song of this movie. After it, I also began praying hard that it will have Part 2 since I would really like to see Shishio come out to life.