Rurouni Kenshin Part I: Origins

One of the best OV ever made, Takeru Satoh is amazing.

I really loved this movie! and the other two. I had no idea this was the serie I watched now and then when I was a kid! The fights were amazing, I foind myself seeing it two or three times!

i would say its a good movie but got a slow start. was starting to check the time remaining and i found out that i had an hour left of the movie. the last fights was really worth it tho.

love the overacting of the characters and how their characters and voices and the music just fits perfectly together in many scenes.

its a good watch IMO, cant wait for the next movie..... going to checkout the Anime for sure!

Good movie, but I feel it should have been a little shorter. The choreography was totally insane!

I would say the movie is a fairly good live-action adaptation of Kenshin altought it never steps above being a blockbuster. They went with a rewrite of the first arc where they leave out some characters like Aoshi which was a bummer. I'm not sure how much people can enjoy the movie without prior knowledge of the manga or the tv-show. Certainly feels like they made the movie for fans and that's fine by me.

(btw: Live-action "Oro" does not translate well..)

Most of the things I'd critizise were already said. I didn't watch the anime for more than 2 or 3 episodes and didn't read more than 1 chapter... So I was kinda innocent to this one, although I am familiar with the rough story of it.
Oro doesn't translate, there are certain jumps in the story, which feel awkward and the movie shows sparse to no bonding between the characters...

The fights were well choreographed, but during the fight against Hannya (at least I think it was supposed to be him) I noticed some slight blurrings due to too much fastening of the battle...

Everything else aside, I still enjoyed the movie.

This is one of the better live-action adaptations I've seen. The rewriting of the first arc works very well, and the casting, especially for Kenshin himself, is fantastic. The fight scenes are well choreographed, and, while much the slapstick is gone, the touches of light-hearted humor remain. It's also very pretty.

However, the film feels kind of disjointed, and you can clearly see where they were combining multiple storylines into one. It sometimes seems to jump randomly from one thing to the next. Also, I'm not sure how well the character's relationships would come across without prior knowledge of the anime or the manga.

I love the adaptation of the characters, but not so much of the plot. It became slow and boring and as previously mentioned in another comment, kind of disconnected. You keep watching because the characters are very entertaining, and it was amazing how well they converted the fighting techniques from the anime and manga to live action. Very impressive!

poor narrative rhythm, and the characters in the plot are inexplicable.

As manga adaptation usually go, this was not that bad. They managed to make a mix of several of the first story arcs without messing up too much with the characters. It still fells cramped though and a little forced, as if what was probably weeks in the manga is happening here in two days, which makes the relationships between the characters quite awkward.

So we get:
- Kenshin's arrival and the fake Battosai
- No Yahiko's arc, he's already here
- Megumi and the opium
- the fight with Sanosuke
- Takeda, but not the Oniwaban Shu (but it's a good choice, it would have been way to much)
- Jine ([spoiler]who turns out to be the fake Battosai[/spoiler], which was quite a clever way to put him in)
- Saito's here, but it's mostly fan service

There's also a flashback on his beginnings as an assassin, which was unnecessary here. There's a reason it is shown quite late in the manga, here it does not bring much, add another story and takes too much time from the current timeline.

The first fights we see, specially ones with a lot of people are not really good, too much camera moves, you don't really see anything.
Kenshin vs Sanosuke was not really good either, but I don't think it was too different from the original, maybe it just does not translate well to screen.

However, the one on one duel are really impressive, and as far as I can recall, pretty close to the manga. Sanosuke's fist fight at the Takeda house was ok, both taking the time to eat and drink in the middle was funny and well placed.
Kenshin's fight is even better, really fast, exactly like it should be.
Fan service: we get Saito's special attack.
Kenshin vs Jine was good too and with the same finishing move as in the manga.

But despite everything they crammed in, the general feeling was a kind of slowness, it was a little too long. Also if the characters don't feel like they betray the manga's spirit it's actually because there's no real character building. They're all almost transparent.