
- Starring
- Mana Ashida, Masaki Okada, Koji Yakusho
- Writer
- Mamoru Hosoda
- Director
- Mamoru Hosoda
- Rating
- 14A (Canada), PG-13 (United States)
- Running Time
- 111 minutes
- Release Date
- February 6th, 2026
Overall Score
Rating Summary
The best anime films can appeal to one’s sense of wonder. As with all animation, it is an outlet for imagination, with anime doing so through ultra-stylized animation and daring storytelling. But, in spite of it all, there should also be some restraint as the temptation to take things too far is a constant one, given the kind of creative freedom that the genre allows. In the midst of all the awe-inducing animation, narratives sometimes get lost in the shuffle, as they become secondary. In addition to restraint, balance is also a key to success. For better or worse, anime, be it film or television, has legions of fans all around the world willing to support it through thick and thin. Meanwhile, writer-director Mamoru Hosoda is no stranger to the genre. A fixture responsible for countless hits, culminating in 2018’s Academy Award nominated Mirai, he is back with Scarlet, a loose adaptation of William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” Taking the long away around, where something closer to a straight adaptation would have certainly made for a much clearer watch, this high concept film instead opts for a few too many stylistic touches that only help to drive it further away from its intended target. Trying to find (or forcing) more meaning than is there, the result is a film that ultimately rings emotionally hollow. That being said, it does a decent job at dazzling visually, but many will be left wondering what it all leading to.
As mentioned, Scarlet, inspired by Shakespeare’s classic revenge tale, is a time-bending action adventure film centered around the titular heroine (Ashida), a sword-wielding princess out for revenge. Going from a war-torn medieval Denmark, her journey to avenge her father’s death took her to the afterlife and a mysterious new world known as the ‘Otherworld.’ This other world was a place where life and death coexisted, weaving both past and future. Those who were not strong enough to survive would merely disappear into nothingness. A world far unlike her own, despite the learning curve it presented, Scarlet remained undeterred and determined to find her father and get her revenge on her uncle Claudius (Kôji Yakusho) for murdering his brother and her father, King Amlet (Ichimura) and marrying his wife Gertrude (Yuki Saito). On the surface, an essentially gender-swapped version of “Hamlet,” the addition of a supernatural/time travelling wrinkle to the story only worked to complicate the matter. Far removed from her regal upbringing, Scarlet trained for years to prepare for the day she would get her revenge, but her youth and inexperience led to her downfall, or at least that’s what it seemed.
At first, feeling defeated, Scarlet thought her mission was over but little did she know, Claudius was also in the ‘Otherworld,’ amassing an army of his own of the dead, under the guise that he would take them to the so-called ‘Infinite Lands.’ Given a new lease on life, her mission was back on, scavenging armor from what she can find in the sand to protect herself against an unforgiving terrain full of soldiers loyal to Claudius and hoards of marauding bandits. While fine in and of itself, things get more complicated once Scarlet meets Hijiri (Okada), a deceased paramedic from the future who denied that he was indeed deceased. Making him a pacifist from a different time, the contrast between both characters and the resounding commentary pretty much writes itself. After only a short time in a different world, and seeing all the things he saw, perhaps he needed to rethink what he thought he knew. Getting bogged down in morality, the film tries to present all these questions on the spectrum between forgiveness and vengeance. However, trying to use Scarlet as a conduit for that exploration, the film fails at ever getting to the heart of these quandaries, instead playing it too broadly.
As Scarlet reaches the finish line, one can’t help but wonder what it’s really all about and what it is building up to (besides the eventual Scarlet-Claudius conclusion)? What does it want audiences to take away from it? Full of half-baked thoughts, ideas, and commentary, it is all just there without any tangible connective tissue. Lacking an emotional throughline, whatever dazzling visuals Hosoda may offer, they mean very little in the grand scheme. In the end, it is all about balance, and this film just could never quite get there. While many could forgive the story for the sake of the visuals, which are beautiful, its hollowness prevents it from having much staying power after the credits roll.
Unless audiences are fans of Hosoda and his work, Scarlet is likely to disappear among the heap of countless other similar films available today. Nevertheless, it will still have its fans.
still courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics/Mongrel Media
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The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.
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