Action and adventure filmsReviewBehind the J-poppy storylines of this cartoonish samurai blockbuster gleams a well-shot swordplay spectacularIn 19th-century Japan, swordsman Kenshin (Takeru Satoh) wanders the land, eating sweets and defending maidens with a special blade that's only sharp on the inside edge so he cannot kill: a pledge to atone for his wartime past as the fearsome Battosai, a murderous slaughterer of samurai.
How much you enjoy this slick, big-budget, live-action adaptation of the hit Shonen Jump manga will depend heavily on your tolerance for cartoonish J-poppery: the male lead is a pouty androgyteen, while the bad guy is a campy opium-dandy and (boo, hiss) property developer with an obviously false underbite, whose idea of acting is to curl his lip and who gets his own comic-evil theme music that ruins all his scenes. But behind the adolescent storylines gleams a well-shot swordplay spectacular, featuring a scene-stealing turn from Munetaka Aoki as the Little-John-meets-Ryu-from-Street-Fighter-II sidekick with the 8ft slab of blunt metal. The kitchen fight is a stone-cold classic.
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