Mamoru Hosoda’s new animated feature film “Endless Scarlet,” released on November 21, came in third place in the weekend movie attendance ranking announced by Kogyo Tsushinsha on November 25. The box-office revenue of 210 million yen is quite low for a film by Mr. Hosoda. In addition, according to the weekend movie attendance ranking from November 28 to 30 released by Kogyo Tsushinsha on December 1, the film fell outside the top 10 in its second week of release. The film is set in the “Land of the Dead” and tells the story of Scarlett, a medieval princess who sets out on a journey to take revenge on her uncle Claudius, who killed her father and stole the throne. According to an interview with Mr. Hosoda, who wrote, directed, and wrote the script, the film is based on Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” which is considered the “originator of revenge plays. The voice cast includes Ashida Mana (21) as the main character Scarlett, Okada Masaki (36) as the modern nurse who travels with Scarlett, and a cast of distinguished actors including Yakusho Koji (69), Ichimura Masachika (76), and Saito Yuki (59). However, as soon as the film was released to the public, many people who had seen the film gave it scathing reviews. The average rating of the film was 2.9 out of 5 on the major movie review sites Eiga.com and Filmarks, and the reviews were lined with both positive and negative opinions (as of December 1). Why has this film been so harshly criticized? We asked film writer Hinataka to analyze the background, causes, and positive aspects of the film (Hinataka is in parentheses below). The biggest reason why this film struggled was that it was too different from the atmosphere of Hosoda’s previous films. The film intentionally or unintentionally abandoned its trademark image of “a refreshing and familiar adventure story perfect for summer,” and the “reddish-black visuals” and “a bloody revenge story” were not popular among those who shied away from the film. I think that many people shunned the “reddish-black visuals” and “bloody revenge story. The trailer showing famous scenes from Hosoda’s previous works at the beginning of the film may have had the opposite effect, as it made people feel the gap between the two.
