Rurouni Kenshin: The Final (2021)

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Rurouni Kenshin: The Final (2021)

Despite the third film in this series being quite conclusively called The Legend Ends, it’s seven years later and it looks like the legend is very much not ending – instead, the series continues in the form of another two back-to-back sequels. You can say what you like about the Rurouni Kenshin films, but you can’t question their consistency: inventive, fast-paced action scenes; wacky characters; edgy, but without being too violent; political, but without anything to say; long and overwrought; and with decent performances. This fourth film is perhaps the most humourless and baggy so far, and although it is …

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Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends (2014)

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Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends (2014)

“The legend ends” after a bloated four-and-a-half-hours of storytelling – if you include the previous movie – highlighting how brevity is clearly not one of filmmaker Keishi Ōtomo’s strong suits. Also, despite the huge running-time, these films have been rife with plot-holes, with random characters appearing out of nowhere and things happening with little or no reason or context. This concluding chapter is probably the most effective in fully committing to its wacky manga origins, setting the scene for an all-out battle to save Tokyo from Shishiro (Tatsuya Fujiwara) – a maniacal killer-for-hire who was burned alive and is now seeking revenge – and …

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Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno (2014)

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Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno (2014)

Solid if ambling sequel filmed back-to-back with part three, The Legend Ends, which delivers more spirited sword-fighting and zany characters from the world of popular manga, Rurouni Kenshin. Following the events of the first film, Kenshin (Takeru Satoh) – the pacifist samurai continuing his vow not to kill – is now living a utopian existence helping Kaoru (Emi Takei) to run her dojo, hanging out with tempestuous street-brawler Sanosuke – played by Munetaka Aoki, very much enjoying his comedic foil role – who might have a thing for their doctor neighbour, Megumi (Yū Aoi). It’s pretty obvious their idyllic life …

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The Emperor’s Sword (2020)

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The Emperor’s Sword (2020)

Sumptuous, moody wuxia with a modern twist; a constantly moving, robotic arm camera used during the action sequences, and a weird, gimmicky motion-sensor technique which zooms between takes in incredibly artificial slow-motion. It’s actually quite distracting, and clearly doesn’t work. During an action scene, the camera seems to pause on completely random parts of the frame. Then there’s the shoddy visual effects used in post-production. It’s a shame, because it detracts from a film with some accomplished moments; a Hero-lite story set after the death of China’s first Emperor, Qin Shi-huang, and in the tumultuous period before the start of the …

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Profile: Daniel Bernhardt

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Profile: Daniel Bernhardt

Date of birth: 31 August, 1965 (Bern, Switzerland)

Occupation: Actor, stunt performer, model.

Style: Taekwondo, Karate, boxing, kickboxing, jiu jitsu, judo.

Biography: Daniel Bernhardt is an actor, stunt performer and martial artist, known for playing roles in Hollywood action films. He was born in Bern, Switzerland, in 1965. He has two brothers, Dirk and Cliff. He played football as a child and started training in martial arts at the age of 15; he trained in boxing, kickboxing, karate and taekwondo. After finishing high-school at the age of 16, he spent four years working his apprenticeship at an architect’s firm. He graduated at the …

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KFMG Podcast S06 Episode 76: Daniel Bernhardt

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KFMG Podcast S06 Episode 76: Daniel Bernhardt

“I’m very, very fortunate. I work with the best people in the game. And they push me – they push me hard.”

Daniel Bernhardt is a true renaissance man; a martial artist from Switzerland who went from being a professional model in Paris to a Hollywood action star. In the 1990s, he was a leading man in low-budget martial arts films – the star of slicker-than-your-average straight-to-video hits like the Bloodsport sequels, True Vengeance and Perfect Target, working alongside fellow martial artists and aspiring filmmakers like Chad Stahelski, David Leitch, Brad Martin, Jonathan Eusebio and J.J. Perry. When the video market crashed in …

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KFMG Podcast S06 Episode 75: Lee Charles / James Nunn

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KFMG Podcast S06 Episode 75: Lee Charles / James Nunn

“It’s my proudest achievement in film to date.” James Nunn

It has taken six years for director James Nunn to bring his one-take, real-time action movie to the screen. During that time, ‘one-shot’ movies like Birdman and 1917 have not only dominated at the box office, but they have also been lauded by critics. In many ways, Nunn’s intense, relentless thriller, One Shot – which is released theatrically and on VOD services in the USA on 5 November 2021 courtesy of Screen Media Films – is an even more remarkable achievement, considering its comparatively low-budget and 20-day shooting schedule (1917, by comparison, was made …

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One Shot (2021)

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One Shot (2021)

Taut, enveloping, and very well crafted ‘one-take’ action film which absolutely delivers on its real-time premise. The technique has been explored in Hollywood in recent years in the Academy Award-winning Birdman (2014) and 1917 (2019). The sheer audacity of indie filmmaker James Nunn and martial arts star Scott Adkins (who last worked together on 2016’s Eliminators) to even attempt to do a similar thing on a comparatively minuscule budget is worthy of your admiration; the fact they actually manage to pull it off is nothing short of miraculous. There are shades of Extraction star Chris Hemsworth in Adkins’ Jake Harris – …

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Rurouni Kenshin (2012)

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Rurouni Kenshin (2012)

Nobuhiro Watsuki’s popular 90s manga gets the live-action treatment with fight scenes orchestrated by long-time Donnie Yen collaborator, Kenji Tanigaki. Japan, 1868, and the Battle of Toba-Fushimi marks the end of shogunate rule and the start of the Meiji period, when Japanese isolationism was replaced by a new age of modernism, openness and industry. At the end of the battle, when it’s clear that Japan’s feudalistic system is over, legendary pro-government killer Himura Battōsai (Takeru Satoh) – forever marked with a distinctive facial scar – stabs his katana into the ground and walks away from the bloodshed, becoming ‘Himura Kenshin’, a …

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More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story (2021)

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More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story (2021)

A ‘warts and all’ documentary about the life of Japanese American comedian and actor Noriyuki “Pat” Morita, who died in 2005 at the age of 73 after a lifetime battling with alcoholism. Curated by his third wife, Evelyn Guerrero, and seemingly endorsed by Morita himself, the film appears to be based on an unfinished memoir and features Morita’s own voice narrating much of the story. As a sickly child with spinal tuberculosis, he was practically immobile for most of his childhood, before life-saving back surgery gave him the ability to walk again. At the outbreak of war, the Morita family were forcibly …

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