Tag: revenge

A Woman Scorned

  By

★★★
“Hell hath no fury?”

This had a fair number of decent and well-done elements. However, it very much feels like these are balanced by the aspects which fall short of adequate. How you react to this will likely be determined by your ability to overlook the latter, and appreciate the former. The basic idea is lean and mean. Sisters Jas (Purvis) and Laura (Pauley) are on a country weekend, when they encounter a car-load of men led by the particularly sleazy Randy (North). This leads to a home-invasion, a dead Laura, and Jas going on a rampage of revenge through everyone Randy can throw at her. Fair enough there, with enough brutal violence to leave the most blood-thirsty satisfied.

But I have questions. So many questions. Why does one sister have an American accent? Why are the villains so utterly incompetent? I mean, they can’t even tie Jas up for ten seconds – never mind taking advantage of the many, many opportunities to dispose of her entirely. Don’t even get me started on the gas canister scene: hello, throw it through the window? How does Jas, who has never been in the area, magically know the location of their headquarters, and so can head straight for it? Where did she acquire that very particular set of skills? All we get is a passing reference to her having taken a self-defense class – all I can say is, these lessons must have been given by John Wick. 

Because Jas goes from zero to stabbing someone in the neck, in about thirty seconds after finding the body of her sister, and takes more damage than a crash-test dummy, without flinching. As for calling the authorities? It’s vastly over-rated. This really leaves her character with nowhere to go for the rest of the film: a slower escalation would probably have been more satisfying. None of the above flaws are necessarily show-stoppers by themselves. The damage criticism, for example, could equally be levelled at the heroine in Revenge. However, they all combine to chip away at this film’s overall entertainment value, in effect leaving it doing the Hokey-Pokey: one step forward, one step back. 

This is before we get to specific elements, like the performances. These are similarly over the place, particularly among the villains. Fortunately, North – who likely has most acting to do, since Purvis’s performance mostly requires screaming – makes for a pleasantly hateable bad guy. There’s some spectacularly bad CGI fire; the practical stuff is fine, with energetic blood spatter, and everyone selling each bit of damage with the enthusiasm of someone auditioning for the WWE. This momentum is sufficient to paper over some of the flaws, though it would be optimistic to say it covers them all, or anywhere close to that. But I am a simple man, with simple needs. Consequently, I’ll always look somewhat kindly on a movie which possesses zero pretensions and a large bucket of red-coloured corn syrup.

Dir: Rebecca J Matthews and Michael Hoad
Star: Megan Purvis, Aaron-Jon North, Hannah Pauley

Revolver

  By

★★★½
“Speak softly, but carry a big stick.”

You need to be patient with this. Both in terms of its plot and, more generally, its attitude. This isn’t exactly action-packed. Yet the heroine – and I used the word loosely – is an unstoppable force of nature. Just more like a glacier than a tornado. She never rushes in, always having a plan, and rarely raises her voice. Yet woe beside anyone who tries to get in her way. She is Ha Soo-yeong (Jeon D-y), whom we first meet as she is being released from prison at the end of her sentence. Turns out she was a policewoman, busted for corruption in a scheme also involving her cop boyfriend. 

Ha agreed to take the fall, in exchange for post-prison consideration: a large cash sum and an apartment. But by the time she serves her time, the world has moved on. Her boyfriend killed himself, the apartment was given away, and the gangster who promised to take care of her, Andy (Ji), is no longer part of the organization. Ha just wants what she feels she is owed. When her polite requests for this are rebuffed, she is unwilling to take no for an answer and move on with her life. No longer constrained by the chains of official justice, Ha sets about finding someone who is willing to pay up, with the help of Jeong Yoon-seon (Lim), and others with various interests in the outcome. 

Naturally, there are those who are not keen to have the awkward situation they thought they had covered up, brought back to attention. Whether it’s the detective still on the beat, or Grace (Jeon H-j), the woman now in charge of the criminal operation, Ha represents a potential problem, which must be solved. While the movie is part of the ever-popular Korean revenge genre, it does provide a different twist. The wrong for which Ha seeks payback is largely a result of her misplaced trust – and after all, she is still a corrupt cop. Yet, courtesy of Jeon’s excellent performance, I still found myself rooting for her. Her calm demeanour is certainly a refreshing change from the more emotive heroines we typically get.

The viewer will need to accept the film is going to unfold at its own, relatively leisurely pace. Yet if you can, I’d say the payoff should be more than adequate, not least in one of the more unusual central characters we have covered on the site. That said, rather than the titular weapon, Ha proves capable of wielding a mean extendable baton. She beats seven kinds of manure out of Andy after he tries to fob her off with drugs, instead of promised money. For if violence may not be her first choice, it always remains a viable option. I might have preferred a little more of it, considering how many disreputable characters she comes across. This, incidentally, does not apply to Grace, who might be the smartest person here. She at least knows when to cut her losses.

Dir: Oh Seung-uk
Star: Jeon Do-yeon, Ji Chang-wook, Lim Ji-yeon, Jeon Hye-jin

Dietroit 2 Chiraq

  By

★½
“Aspirations impossible to fulfill.”

I’m not averse to the concept here. The Tubi synopsis says, “Three women rampage from Detroit to Chicago seeking revenge on Davion Legrel I, the ruthless criminal who killed their best friend.” I’d watch that movie: if anyone ever gets around to making it, let me know. Because this certainly would require subdued lighting and a very specific angle, as well probably as some kind of eye condition, before it could be mistaken for the synopsis. I am even slightly interested in lead character Christina (Brazier), a former Army nurse who, bizarrely, alludes to having learned interrogation skills while on tour in the Middle East. This would not be a combination I’ve encountered before. 

Unfortunately, that’s where the good news ends. I guess the synopsis is technically accurate, providing you are happy with a very loose definition of the words “rampage”, “revenge” and “ruthless.” For the main problem is simply resources unable to depict convincingly what’s in the script. The most woeful example is when Christina and pals Robin (Merrill) and Stephanie (Reynolds) arrive in Chicago, and go to a “club” in search of information about Davion (Spearmon). “This is a classy place,” says one attendee. No: it is not. It looks far more like an empty office suite, having folding tables as furniture, and two bits of paper on the wall, with the words “CLUB” and “HADES” printed on them. And don’t even get me started on the woeful rap artist, supposedly launching his EP. 

These poverty-row production values permeate the whole production. There’s a latter sequence supposed to be set in a top-end bordello, where our trio masquerade as hookers (explaining the cover), again for information gathering purposes. To be blunt, I’ve seen condemned crack houses with more erotic ambiance. The problem is, basically, ambitions far in excess of what the makers can deliver. They should have gone the other direction, rather than trying (and failing miserably) to appear high-end. Go low instead, and aim for gritty authenticity, telling a story fresh off the streets – a 40-ounce of MD 20/20, rather than Rémy Martin. Make that brothel an actual drug-den, ugly and grimy, and turn Christina’s journey into a descent to a lower circle of hell. 

The results often left me feeling second-hand cringe for actors likely better than the film deserves, and relentlessly obliged to play make-believe so hard, to try and sell what’s happening. Meanwhile, the rest of the film seems to be actively trying to sabotage them, courtesy of elements like unconvincing CGI muzzle flashes. Though I was amused by the unexpected recycling of one of Pulp Fiction‘s most notorious lines. Specifically, the one about being a holding location for deceased persons of African-American heritage: it probably works better here, than coming out of the mouth of Quentin Tarantino. But it’s a rare moment where this manages to be other than an embarrassment. Even by the standards of this genre, this is well short of adequate. 

Dir: Shawn Woodard
Star: Shavannahre Brazier, Richelle Merrill, Lakeisha Reynolds, Shawn D. Spearmon Sr.

Sister’s Revenge

  By

★★
“The Harder They Fall”

This gains something for novelty value, coming from Jamaica – a country from which I think I have only ever seen one film before, reggae classic The Harder They Come. It’s also so obscure, there’s no listing for it in the IMDb. Unfortunately, despite being available to watch on Tubi, the presentation leaves a lot to be desired, particularly in the subtitles. The film’s dialogue is in a roughly equal mix of heavily-accented English, and Jamaican patois, often in the same sentence. It feels like the subs were generated purely by an audio to text application, so the English captioning is spotty and there’s no translation at all for the patois. As subtitles go, they’re basically useless.

I was still able to discern the plot easily enough, though details like the lead character’s name remain a mystery, in part because of the lack of other sources of information. I’m going to call her Sister (Francis), in line with the title. She is a soldier, who is also responsible for taking care of her 16-year-old sibling, Blessing (Wallace). Unfortunately, Blessing has just confessed that she is pregnant, and worse, there are two possible fathers. Sister is less than happy about this. After confronting the young men, and getting nowhere, she goes to the police and convinces Officer Dibble (Vassell) to arrest them. This lasts only until the mother of one, Sonia (Russell), bribes Dibble to let them go, having failed to bribe Sister to drop the case. 

It’s therefore up to Sister to make sure justice is served herself. She abducts one of the perpetrators, and makes him confess, an act which allows the case to go up above Dibble’s head. Sonia then pays Dibble more, to take care of Sister permanently, but her military training makes him no match. [To be fair, when he goes to see the men, he’s holding his hand-gun sideways, then tucks it into the front pocket of his jeans. Jamaican police are rather loose with firearms training, it appears]. She then repeats the exercise with Sonia, extracting a confession on video of her bribery, allowing her and Blessing to achieve closure, apparently deciding they will raise the child together. 

It seems very basic, though given the subtitle situation, this is no bad thing. The first half in particularly is very chatty, basically an extended series of conversations: Sister & Blessing; Sister, Blessing & Dibble; Sister & Sonia; Sonia & Dibble. Director Brown doesn’t seem to have a lot of shots in his locker, so these have to sustain on the acting, and that’s a mixed bag. Francis and Russell are the best, and the scenes between the two guardians do crackle, but Wallace is unconvincing, and I was never particularly on Blessing’s side. [The sex seems to have been entirely consensual] I’m reluctant to be too harsh, since the presentation certainly doesn’t help. Outside of being a groundbreaking curiosity, I’m not convinced there’s much of note here. 

Dir: Richard Brown
Star: Jessica Francis, Jayvia Wallace, Candice Russell, Andrew Vassell

Ghost Killer

  By

★★½
“Spectrally short of satisfying.”

By coincidence, I watched this after Baby Assassins 3, without realizing the star here plays Chisato in that franchise; the director here was also its action director. Discovering the overlap is a minor demerit against Ghost Killer, because it counts as something of a waste of her talents. It’s a lovely idea – if you’re just an action fan in general, then it likely scores half a star higher. However, specifically as an action heroine film, there is room for improvement. It begins with the assassination of an assassin. Hideo Kudo (Mimoto) works for a criminal organization, and his death occurs in somewhat murky circumstances. The spent cartridge used to kill him, takes on his vengeful spirit, and the casing is picked up by an innocent college student Fumika Matsuoka (Takaishi). 

After a period of mutual adjustment to being haunted and doing the haunting, Fumika agrees to help Kudo find out who was responsible for his murder, and take revenge. She is the only person who can see and talk to Kudo, and when she grasps his hand, that allows him to take over her body, with all the associated hitman abilities. Along the road to his vengeance, they will have to deal with a date-rapey triple tag-team, as well as another assassin in the same organization, a former student of Kudo, Toshihisa Kagehara (Kuroba). That pair’s relationship is a little fraught, even after Kagehara is convinced about the reality of what is happening. 

The first half of this is very solid, highlighted by the performance of Takaishi as both a college student and a vengeful killer – simultaneously, which makes it all the more remarkable. It means she has to be an expert fighter, and somebody who wouldn’t say “Boo!” to a goose, as her and Kudo tussle for control. I feel as if that enough would have been sufficient to propel the narrative of the entire film. However, it ends up diverting into less interesting Yakuza-based activities in the middle, and it almost becomes easy to forget that Kudo is dead. There aren’t really any surprises once the framework of the situation has been established, heading towards the eventual and predictable confrontation between Kudo and his killer. 

And that’s the problem. It’s between Kudo and his killer, not Fumika. It’s still “in her body,” and I enjoyed the scenes where Kudo is guiding her to hide – telling her when to go around a pillar, for example. But when battle is joined, the film shows Mimoto doing the fighting, not Takaishi. Don’t get me wrong: it’s a very good fight, and that’s why I’d say a general viewer is still likely to be satisfied by it. But I was looking forward to seeing the actress really getting to let loose. After all, having experienced the Baby Assassins trilogy, there’s no issue about her martial arts abilities. Seeing her largely sidelined at the end was a disappointing way to finish things off. 

Dir: Kensuke Sonomura
Star: Akari Takaishi, Masanori Mimoto, Mario Kuroba

Agent Zero

  By

★★½
“Shaky, in a number of ways.”

Alma Siracine (Vacth) was a black ops agent for the French government, until an assignment in Syria went pear-shaped, and she resigned her position. Seven years later, she’s living quietly with her policeman husband in Morocco, until he’s the victim of a drive-by shooting. She finds the attackers and terminates them. Unfortunately, they are the sons of local arms dealer Manour Khoury (Dazi). Not helping, he is under the protection of the French government, being allowed to operate in exchange for funneling information to them about terrorist attacks. Spymaster Joanna Walter (Bercot) decides Alma is a loose end in need of tidying. Alma, naturally, is of a different opinion, and won’t be easy to clean up.

The main problem here is de Fontenay’s fondness for shakycam in the action sequences. Not just one or two. It feels like every time anyone moves at a pace quicker a walk, the camera immediately starts to have some kind of seizure. It’s clearly a tactic designed to instill a sense of immediacy. Paul Greengrass used it to great effect in the Bourne movies. But it isn’t just a case of taking a handheld camera and waving it around. You need an editor who can assemble the footage into a coherent format. Sadly, that’s what is absent here, and the results are usually difficult to follow, and on occasion liable to induce a headache. 

Consequently, I found myself almost dreading the appearance of an action sequence. Not exactly a good thing to experience during an action movie. Whether it was her brutally efficient dispatch of Khoury’s sons, a motorcycle chase through the streets of the seaside town where she lives, or the final battle with Khoury’s men at the port in Casablanca, the approach is the same. It feels like a throwback – and a most unwelcome one at that – to the style of action cinema popular twenty years ago. I thought we had moved on. Apparently not. The film is (literally) on more solid ground when depicting the murky world of international espionage, where pragmatic decisions are made without consideration of the moral concerns. I actually have some sympathy for Walter and her almost impossible situation. 

Outside of the camerawork, the technical elements are generally fine. The film makes decent use of its Moroccan and Middle East locations, and Dazi makes for a decent villain, believing himself untouchable, regardless of what he does. However, the overall structure feels off in some way, and the film just seems to end in a way likely to provoke a “Well, that happened” reaction in the viewer. Vacth has some effective moments, and the film never totally lost my attention. But it did teeter on the edge more than once, especially when it made me feel like I had contracted an inner-ear disorder. Those with a stronger stomach than I might find more to enjoy here. Wouldn’t necessarily bet on it though.

Dir: Guillaume de Fontenay
Star: Marine Vacth, Emmanuelle Bercot, Slimane Dazi, Niels Schneider
a.k.a. Badh

Sayara

  By

★★★★
“Turkish delight.”

Well, “delight” might not quite be the right word. But who am I to let facts get in the way of a good review tagline? It’s more of a Turkish nightmare, probably the most brutal rape-revenge movie I’ve seen since… Well, probably Revenge. The director is best-known for Baskin, generally considered the best horror movie from Turkey. Though, full disclosure, I wasn’t that impressed by it: strong on atmosphere, but short on a coherent storyline. That’s not an accusation which can be levelled at this. However, the level of savagery and bloodshed arguably puts this into the horror genre as well. It’s the story of two Turkmenistan sisters, Sayara (Kocabiyik) and Yonca (Kosar), both of whom are involved, in different ways, with gym owner Bariş Ataberk (Kizilirmak).

Yonca is having an affair with the married man. But she has been able to leverage this into getting a job at the facility, as a cleaner, for the much quieter Sayara. Bariş offers Sayara a job as a trainer, teaching female clients self-defense, knowing of her skills in this area, but she declines. Worse follows, when Yonca catches Bariş cheating, and threatens to reveal all to his wife. This does not go down well, and ends in Yonca’s death, which is called a suicide officially. It helps that Bariş’s father, Halil Ataberk (Inal), is a senator with a lot of political pull, and can ensure no action is taken against his son.

No official action, anyway. While Sayara may have seemed the quiet and meek sister, we see in flashbacks the relationship she had with her soldier father – now, notably absent. One senses a lot of darkness there. Indeed, he tells his daughter. “I committed many great sins. It doesn’t matter. The darkness in me, is in you too, Sayara. But if someone crosses that line – to you, or your mother, or to your sister – you will go all the way, without blinking. You will go to the bottom of that darkness.” And Sayara does. Boy, does she. Not just against Bariş, but all those involved, even tangentially, and using every weapon at her disposal, from fire to her teeth. The latter provides the film’s most horrific scene.

This establishes its direction early. The first spoken line is “Son of a whore!” and it’s something of a mix of social complaints thereafter. Class, nationality and gender all come into play here in the power dynamics. Though it’s not as one-side as it might seem: Yonca is hardly blameless, and seems to have a fondness for S&M games, as well as no respect for the sanctity of marriage. However, “blurred lines” hardly excuse what happens to her subsequently, and you’ll be firmly behind Sayara on her relentless quest for the bottom of that darkness. You may not find the ending fully satisfying, in the traditional sense. But I’m hard-pushed to deny it’s appropriate, and you will certainly remember it. 

Dir: Can Evrenol
Star: Duygu Kocabiyik, Emre Kizilirmak, Özgül Kosar, Levent Inal

Razor Days

  By

★★
“Just not sharp enough, I’m afraid.”

This was certainly not what I expected. That, in itself, would not have been a problem – I’m quite used to, and indeed do not mind, films which confound my preconceptions. I respect what this is attempting to do as well, which is a different take on the revenge movie. The problem here is fumbled execution: more on the directorial, writing and technical fronts, though in some of the performances too. Even allowing for the obviously limited resources this had to play with, by the end, it was definitely a struggle to get through, with a lack of narrative thrust in particular, meaning it failed to hold my attention. That’s a bit of a shame. Only a bit, mind you.

There are three central characters here: Anita (Best), Jessamay (Rochon) and Rena (Monahan). Two of them have severe cases of post-traumatic stress disorder, resulting from their kidnapping and savage treatment at the hands of a rural family, the Logans, who may have cannibalistic tendencies. Jessamay, in particular, suffered brutally, losing an eye and being left with a badly-scarred face. Rena, meanwhile, has largely retired from society. But with the reluctant help of Anita, Jessamay tracks her down and convinces Rena to join them as they head to the Logan farm. As Jessamay puts it, “Time to tell God that he can’t fuck with us and not have any repercussions.” But this does not exactly have the healing consequences for which the trio were hoping. 

And that’s the point: revenge is not clean or cathartic. Indeed, part of the message here seems to be that it can end up turning you into the monster too. To quote Friedrich Nietzsche, “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” If someone optioned that line and made a movie of it, you’d probably end up with this. Which works for Rochon’s character, because she has the necessary acting chops to pull it off. Despite her reputation as a “scream queen”, she has always been a cut above that in her talent. The others though? Not nearly so much.

Not helping: bad audio, which will either have you leaping for the remote or, in my case, turning it almost all the way down and relying on the subtitles. There are interesting ideas for a revenge film, such as that we don’t see the victims’ ordeal until after the revenge – and even then, it’s through Jessamay’s dreams, an unreliable narrator if ever there were one. Unfortunately, the execution is sloppy and dilutes the points the movie is trying to make. It’s an interesting contrast to the recently reviewed Undercover, where the story was nothing new, but it did it brilliantly. Here, there’s no shortage of innovation, but Watt doesn’t know how to go about getting them off the page and onto the screen. 

Dir: Mike Watt
Star: Amy Lynn Best, Debbie Rochon, Bette Cassatt, Jeff Monahan

Extremities

  By

★★★
“Not so extreme.”

In the mid-eighties, Farrah Fawcett underwent a bit of sharp change in career path. The previous decade had seen her become one of the biggest sex symbols of the seventies, a star in the first season of Charlie’s Angels, and selling millions of posters a year. But here and in 1984’s TV movie The Burning Bed, which addressed the largely taboo topic of domestic abuse, Fawcett’s work took on a pro-feminist tone. While Bed hit screens before this, her connection to Extremities predated it. The concept was originally a stage play, and Fawcett appeared in the original New York production – incidentally, replacing Susan Sarandon (Karen Allen, Ellen Barkin and Helen Mirren have also taken on the lead role). 

She was thus an easy choice for the film adaptation, to a mixed reception. While nominated for a Golden Globe, critics Siskel & Ebert called it one of the worst movies of the year – alongside the brilliance of The Hitcher, so I’m ignoring them. The origins on-stage are fairly obvious. The bulk of this takes place in the house shared by Marjorie (Fawcett), Terry (Scarwid) and Pattie (Woodard). Marjorie is recovering from narrowly escaping a rape attempt. With the attacker wearing a mask, the police are unable to act, and she is now living in fear, knowing her attacker has her wallet, and so knows where she lives. Rightfully so, for when Joe (Russo) shows up on her doorstep, it’s not with good intentions. 

With the help of a convenient can of wasp spray, she is able to turn the tables on her attacker. Joe is knocked out and tied up, while Marjorie prepares her own brand of justice, digging a grave in the garden, in which he will be buried alive. However, the return of first Terry and then Pattie to the house complicate matters, not least because Joe claims he’s the victim, and he and Marjorie knew each other before. Using information he had found in the mail-box, he’s able to spread dissension in the ranks, with Pattie – a social worker, so clearly a do-gooder on the side of the criminal – particularly averse to Marjorie’s plans. We also learn about an incident in Terry’s past, which colours her opinion.

In contrast to other entries like Hard Candy, there’s no doubt as to the antagonist’s guilt, and that certainty makes it a bit less interesting to me. I was impressed with Fawcett’s performance – the switch from victim to relentless avenging angel is sudden, yet does not feel unwarranted. Russo also deserves credit, for playing a compelling slimeball, who is also convincing enough when pleading innocence. The strong leads help counter what feels unnecessarily restrained, compared to other eighties entries in the genre, both in terms of the rape and the revenge: there were points where I wondered if this was a TV movie. The ending would be one such. I guess we discover that the way to a rapist’s heart, involves his crotch, a sharp blade and threats in lieu of actual mutilation.

Dir: Robert M. Young
Star: Farrah Fawcett, James Russo, Diana Scarwid, Alfre Woodard

Scarlet

  By

Mamoru Hosoda is one of the senior figures in Japanese animation, with thirty-five years of experience since he joined Toei Animation in 1991, after graduating from college. He made his feature debut with One Piece: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island in 2006, though this came only after he had almost directed Howl’s Moving Castle for Studio Ghibli. He subsequently left Toei, to go freelance, and his works since have met with both critical and commercial success. Mirai was nominated for an Oscar in 2019 as Best Animated Feature – the first non-Ghibli film to be so honoured. 2021’s Belle , loosely inspired by fairy-tale Beauty and the Beast, was the second-biggest movie at the Japanese box-office that year, domestic or foreign.

His latest movie and the follow-up to Belle, Scarlet, was a long production, taking four and a half years to complete. It mixes traditional 2D cel animation with computer-generated animation, and is a take on Shakespeare’s story of Hamlet, with its titular heroine seeking vengeance on the people who murdered her father, the monarch of 16th century Denmark. Her first attempt backfires, when she consumes the poison intended for her uncle Claudius, the leader of the plot. Scarlet wakes to find herself in the purgatory of the underworld. She needs to complete her revenge in order to move on to the Infinite Land; otherwise, her spirit will collapse into nothingness. It turns out that Claudius is in the underworld too…

Both Dieter and Jim watched and reviewed this one independently. Below, you’ll find their respective ratings and thoughts, with Dieter going first. 

★★★★★
“The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns”

On the fourth anniversary of Russia invading the Ukraine a movie like this hits harder, I feel. At the same time, the Berlin Film Festival has ended and while a whole lot of boring message movies got awards, this one was not even in competition. I guess it also won’t win any Oscar awards. For the same reason: it’s just too good. It would blow any competing features out of the water. And yes, this is a strongly subjective review. Watch the movie and judge for yourself, I suggest.

But… I’m already starting with the end. I was honestly blown away by this movie. While neither the idea of a female Hamlet is new (see the 1921 Hamlet: The Drama of Vengeance with Asta Nielsen) nor doing a Shakespeare-inspired anime (there is the anime series Romeo x Juliette from 2007) what director Mamoru Hosoda has done here for Studio Chizu, is fascinating. No idea why he chose the story of Hamlet as an entry point: perhaps because it’s the most universally-known revenge story next to Death Wish? It would have worked just as well with new, fictional characters and other names.

I didn’t mind. It only serves as a basis on which the director discusses the general but often overlooked and therefore more essential questions of humankind: What defines our humanity? What do we live for? What does death mean? What is love? What can be forgiven? What cannot? How much are we shaped by the environment we grow up in? And if we spread a loving and peaceful attitude can we change the world for future generations?

These are big, important ideas which do not normally form a part of “entertainment culture” or political discussions today, as everyone is too much occupied in serving their own self-interest. Actually, I would locate these questions more in the areas of philosophy and religion. At the same time, the animation style itself is impressive: not just the usual 2D cell animation nor CGI animation. I don’t know how to describe it: while most of it seems classically drawn, many of the backgrounds seem photo-realistic as if they are “real”, including the desert, water, ruins and a jungle. Also overwhelming is the sky of this “other land” which looks like waves, over which a giant dragon flies and occasionally erupts in deadly lightning.

While the visual style takes some time to get used to, this is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s different and new and that’s it. I liked it but I can understand if other people might reject this approach. It’s really a matter of individual taste. Putting all these aspects aside, I found the movie really entertaining. It’s an epic, bombastic movie with a passionate heroine, lots of fights (somehow these medieval Danes seem to have quite some knowledge of martial arts) and – surprisingly – beautiful songs. With Scarlet being shown training hard since her early youth, her fighting larger opponents doesn’t seem that much of an overstatement. She also doesn’t always win, which helps to make the fights look more realistic.

If Mamoru Hosoda might not be as famous or successful as Hayao Miyazaki or Makoto Shinkai (Your Name), so far, he has always delivered excellent and interesting movies. Scarlet is his 8th movie (I challenge the uninitiated to discover his other movies, and especially recommend The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer Wars) and was co-produced by Columbia Pictures. I regret that movies like this only ever run for one day here, and occasionally some more in some tiny cinemas as I think they deserve so much more exposure. Here is hoping, I may have contributed to making this excellent movie more well-known, and create some interest in its potential audience watching it, or at least giving it a chance.

★★★
“Better red than dead.”

Up-front confession: I haven’t seen any of Hosoda’s other work, so am not familiar with the style. Indeed, for a while, I was confusing him with Mamoru Oshii, of Ghost in the Shell and Avalon fame. Which isn’t as much of a stretch as it may seem. Oshii’s work seems to rely a lot on a loose narrative, using the virtual world in Avalon as a convenient loophole through which any plot thread can pass. You could make much the same argument for Scarlet, with the underworld being a realm where stuff simply can happen, because it’s the underworld. I’m not a huge fan of this kind of plot armour, and would likely have been happier if Scarlet had been pursuing her vengeance in the everyday world. 

The early stages will feel rather familiar to any fan of Game of Thrones. Scarlet can only watch as her father, a beloved figure, is executed in the name of political machinations. She then vows revenge, and undergoes a rigorous training program to that end. Very Arya Stark. Fortunately (or perhaps not?), it finds its own way after she consumes poison, and Scarlet finds herself in the afterlife. It’s necessarily a shock, but she has the mental fortitude to adapt. She’s joined there by Hijiri, a paramedic from the present day. In effect, he acts as her conscience, continuing to treat the wounded as he had done in life, and questioning the need for her revenge. This becomes especially pertinent after we hear the message Scarlet’s late father had for her. 

I cannot fault the visual side of things here at all. Dieter encouraged me to see this on the largest screen possible. Unfortunately, it did not last long in cinemas here: two weeks after release, it was down to showing in just twenty-four theatres nationwide. But having seen it in my living-room, I would not have minded a much larger viewing experience, and can only imagine the impact. It’s not seamless, in that you can often tell which sequences were old-school, and which were zeroes and ones. But the overall effect is undeniably impressive, and on that basis alone, I’d say it deserved an Oscar nomination more, say, than Zootopia 2.

However, as the above likely suggests, I was not particularly impressed with the plot. The basic elements were there – you can’t go wrong with revenge of the Shakespearean kind – but there are elements which seem not to serve this. For example, there’s a significant chunk where Scarlet and Hijiri are simply hanging out with elderly souls. It feels like John Wick paused his revenge, to spend an afternoon helping out at the local senior centre. I guess the eventual aim is that Important Lessons™ need to be learned by Scarlet about the value of life. But if you compare this to the works of Hayao Miyazaki, the moral lecturing here comes over as less than subtle. 

I did like the contrast between Hijiri and Scarlet. Interesting that the “caregiver” character here was male and from the present times, while the vengeance seeking warrior was female and out of the middle ages. This subversion of standard tropes is thought-provoking, without needing to deliver any explicit messaging, and the relationship between the pair works well. If you’re familiar with Hamlet, you’ll also get a kick out of some of the references (the versions here of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are particularly memorable). But any film which uses a dragon – another Game of Thrones nod? – as a convenient prop for the story-line, needs to be answering questions about its scripting. It’s this which stopped Scarlet from being more, for me, than just a well-crafted, pretty thing at which to look.

Dir: Mamoru Hosoda
Star (voice): Mana Ashida, Masaki Okada, Koji Yakusho, Kōtarō Yoshida