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← darkroom
[Spoilers] Scarlet Release Discussion
I was really excited for this film going in, especially because I got to see it early with New York Film Festival and the director, Hosoda was in attendance for a QnA. The animation style is very striking and it's cool to see films who go in a different direction than other anime films. I do gotta say that it mostly worked well except in some cases where there was no movement or a scene like the Hawaiian woman dancing, but overall I enjoyed it, especially in the action scenes. My favorite scene happened in the beginning with the hordes of bodies stretching out to grab her in the pool of blood. I'm very glad I saw this in a theater because the sound design was spectacular. I do think the story could have used some work but I still did enjoy it and the many different characters and their designs that came out of it. I did enjoy the medieval feel of it tho as it gave an Elden Ring kind of vibe to it (I can't think of a better comparison so forgive me)
Some info from the QnA (that I remembered) is that he started with a revenge story that related to a lot of how the world feels after covid but wanted to write an encouraging story for his daughter. Some other info is that normally his anime production pipeline is 3 years, while this took him 4 years, which had to do with how experimental the animation style was. Even he retorts that he didn't know how it would end up looking going into it or if he struct the perfect balance with it for the final product.
I'm excited to see if he'll stick with this new animation style and how it will evolve. I was wondering what manga would work well with this new style and was thinking Berserk or Vagabond would look stunning with it (just a pipe dream).
Now you got me excited for this movie when it comes out in theaters! Glad you had fun and getting this early opportunity to see it!
Edit March 12: Wasn’t expecting it to be this dark and well.. definitely confusing in my opinion. This studio had potential but this movie definitely flopped hard. Frequent amount of scenes being reused every time, ending was rushed and ended on a neutral note… It felt like “bleh”. I wish I am enthusiastic about it but I don’t have much of good feedback for this movie. There’s a lot of vagueness and not a lot of questions can be answered in that movie.
Just finished it in theatres and yeah sometimes scenes were stiff bc of the use of 3d models. There were a decent number of scenes where the characters just sat in shock and the 3d model made it look even stiffer bc you just sat on the expression for more a while and smthg about it was kinda uncanny. Just as they mentioned the dancing scene was a bit rough as well. I also thought there were too many POV zoom in/traveling through the scenery shots that also made it feel a bit I was watching one of those view a room in 360 with a VR headset commercials or smthg ahaha but it certainly was a choice
Otherwise though the models were nice but probably I'd say the movie likely got flak in some of the writing and plot choices that just didn't make sense. Why didn't the dragon smite mr tyrant man from the beginning... Hijiri the entire time was like no killing etc and then just straight up killed two guys but okk? Idk how Scarlet saw a vision of herself in the future either. Why was half the kingdom in the otherworld too, was there some widespread plague or smthg that killed all the king's command?? There were a lot of stuff that seemed scenes they wanted to show they could before thinking of if they should kinda deal? I felt like the space warp to the future lasted wayy too long even for Japanese films that like to sit on the exposition shots. You hear scarlet going uwaaaaa for like minimum 30 seconds and that's enough halfway through... The visuals certainly looked stunning though. Nothing like super egregious though just made me question why? and I'm the type to not really question the world's movies give and show us but yeah this movie left with a lot of questions at the end
Scarlet does kinda become an accessory to Hijiri in their final moments, like girl would drop everything just to be with him but typical fantasy romances i suppose
The themes of the movie are nice if not a bit too idealistic, like nah IRL most of these guys woulda been killed immediately.
I do appreciate the switchup on Hijiri's death, I was totally expecting isekai truck kun cameo? and I also was thinking the King was like forgive your enemies and I really appreciated it ended up being forgive yourself and that she still said she didn't forgive him but she wouldn't fight. That's a more nuanced theme I can take than just blindly letting people betray and take advantage and still just try to talk it out.
Anyways it was an ok movie, I don't think it deserves the hate I've heard of it but it certainly doesn't really make sense.
I loved the animation and choreography, but some moments the movements were stiff, some scenes felt out of place, the story was good overall. But, it did feel like this would have been better as a short series then a movie, 2 antagonists, didn't feel that way, and it was off on how those characters acted. I would say its good if you just want to see the stunning visuals, I watched it in dub, and it wasn't the best, the voice actors didn't really feel like they were trying. I would say 5/10, 6/10 if the sub is better, which i will re-watch when it releases on streaming
I feel a bit sad for the production of this movie cause I think it had the potential to be something great but sadly the execution was mediocre. I wish this was a series so that all the characters could've been expanded a bit more. A lot of them felt one dimensional and the way people reacted felt way too unreal and idealistic especially at the end. It was entertaining but sadly also forgettable.
