Scarlet (voiced by Mana Ashida) didn’t have a care in the world in Mamoru Hosoda’s latest anime Scarlet. Turns out life wasn’t too shabby for a princess in Denmark towards the end of the 16th century. Her father, King Amulet (voiced by Masachika Ichimura), was beloved across the kingdom. That is until Amulet’s brother Claudius’s (voiced by Kôji Yakusho) thirst for power became unbearable.
Claudius and Gertrude (voiced by Yuki Saito) betray Amulet, killing him and taking over the throne. Scarlet vows revenge and begins training, waiting for the day she can avenge her father. Unfortunately Claudius is more than prepared and retaliates.
Scarlet suddenly awakens in the Otherworld – a land that is between life and death where time doesn’t exist. There she meets Hijiri (Masaki Okada), a medic from the future. The only thing Scarlet cares about is finding Claudius and finally repaying him for what he did to her father. Scarlet and Hijiri set out on her quest, this time nothing will stop her.
Hosoda both wrote and directed the film. Serving in dual capacities is nothing new for Hosoda having done so for several of his past projects. Scarlet is slightly different than his past films. The film is loosely based off of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (and I mean loosely…).
Unsurprisingly, the visuals are the highlight of the film. Hosoda uses a mixture of animation styles – relying heavily on CG but incorporating hand drawn animation as well. While there are a few moments that seem odd and out of place, the blending succeeds as a whole. The film is a joy to look at and the action scenes are well done.
Where Scarlet begins to falter is the narrative. The film becomes fairly convoluted and drags at times. The messaging remains fairly consistent and clear, but at times there is just too much going on. An influx of characters, song, dance, time changes – all mashed up and thrown at the audience, sometimes out of nowhere. Overall the strong visuals make up for the narrative mishaps. However when the dust settles, Scarlet doesn’t do enough to differentiate itself from other wonderful films in the genre.
Scarlet is open in theaters now.
