'Scarlet' (2025) - a vlog

I'm really glad you enjoyed it! My partner and I felt very very good about the movie coming out of it, and I'm sad to hear that it bombed. Going into Scarlet I was interested to see how he'd do this sort of "epic" scaled fantasy story (a lot of the promotional material made it seem like it was going to be epic in scope) but was pleasantly surprised to see a movie that was more subtle and introspective. It felt like fantasy by way of Earthsea rather than Game of Thrones or some such. There's also an interesting quality of it feeling like an opera or classical play being shown on the screen, where characters feel like archetypes not as a pejorative but as a reflection of historical european performance arts, but I think I also get that read from so many characters in this having the same names as characters in Shakespeare's work. But yeah, loved the visuals, thought the story was alright while being strangely told, and I hope you're right in saying it'll age well and be looked back on as a forgotten gem. Unfortunate not a lot of people saw it in theaters because I think having the visuals on the big screen is awe-inspiring.

Didnt see it

I hated it. I can appreciate a good 3D animated movie. I loved K-Pop Demon Hunters, I loved the Spiderverse movies, I liked the Chinese series To Be Hero X, I even liked the visual spectacle that Belle was. Hell, I liked The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim. I did not like this one. It felt cheap and janky, and overall just bad to look at. Sure, there were a few gems here and there (the scene where the king sits on his throne, pretending to be asleep and Belle walks towards him on a huge red carpet is gorgeous) but a few scenes does not a good movie make. And let’s not even mention the dance sequence, I can’t understand how someone watched that and said “yep, looks good to me, let’s ship it”. Everything about it just annoyed me. The underworld felt less like a coherent world and more like an unfinished level of a video game, like the area where you're not supposed to go, but you use cheats/the console to teleport yourself and end up in a place that has some stuff the developers just stuffed around or forgot to remove. So you get masses of people with random markets appear out of the sudden for a scene, and random walls attacked with trebuchets, for some reason. The conflict felt asinine. There are many stories about revenge and forgiveness done right. This is not one of them. The prospect of having a princess bent on revenge travel with a pacifist nurse and their personalities clashing sounds interesting, it can lead to some really interesting, witty conversations. Except it never does anything with it, the nurse simply repeats his stance of “violence is bad” with the same conviction as Hodor. There are many reasons why violence and revenge are bad. This movie did not seriously engage with any of them. The romance was simply bad. Apart from the scene where Scarlet imagines herself dancing with him in the future, there is no other indication that there’s a budding romance here. The kiss at the end felt out of nowhere, only there to tick a box, and if it had not existed the whole story and movie would have been the same. Hell, your average action anime has more heartfelt moments between straight guys, that become the fodder for endless streams of gay fanfiction online, than this canonically romantic pairing. For the record I liked Hosoda’s Wolf Children. I also liked his subsequent Mirai no Mirai, although I found it a bit of a rehash of Wolf Children. I liked Belle as well though I also found many flaws. I did not like this one. Hosoda should really hire a scriptwriter and just stick to directing.

Only learned this film existed from this vlog, but you got me intrigued and luckily it was playing near me. My wife and I went to see it and nearly had the theater to ourselves, except for one middle aged anime fan who was surprised no one else was there for the show (in the afternoon, on a weekday, for a niche film with zero promotion). We both enjoyed it on the whole, with some quibbles, so thank you :)

Oh no for the first time in years you posted a video about something I could conceivably want to watch and haven't seen yet so this will have to wait

I want to hear more about the My Little Pony movie.

For what it's worth, this is making me go out and watch Belle.

This was probably the most polarizing movie experience I've had in forever. I can't think of another film that had me cringing out of my seat multiple times throughout, yet still got me to tear up during it's emotional climax. Just about every aspect of this movie was polarizing. The animation is sometimes really jarring (especially during dance sequences), with models often looking way too smooth with stiff movements and featureless backgrounds, but they really nail moments when characters need to emote with both big and subtle facial expressions/body language, as well as dirty and dehydrated facial features that give them great texture. And there are some absolutely breathtaking establishing/wide shots. There are some very evocative PoV sequences that effectively communicate the main character's struggles. Then the same technique is randomly used to follow a nameless crowd in order to rush the plot forward. This movie is full of similar frustratingly bizarre creative decisions. I'm actually surprised Dan found Belle to have a messier structure. It's been a while but I don't remember having any glaring issues with the plot in Belle. Aside from one or two moments that could've used a smoother transition I thought it stayed very focuses on just one character's emotional journey. Scarlet on the other hand was just all over the place for me. Side character's pop in and out of the plot often with little to no buildup. They all serve to reinforce the story's main theme but some of them work A LOT better than others. All of that to say, I thought the script was a fucking mess that could've used several more drafts, but it was nevertheless such a beautiful mess that I can't wait to see it again with a dub so I can pay more attention to the visuals.

I really enjoyed it, especially because I needed something with any hope for humanity in it that day. I am a really easy mark however, I love basically everything Hosodas made, and I'm a sucker for ambition in film even when its uneven. I was charmed by the Hamlet of it all, the lead characters and world building were strong for me even though the center of the nareative is a little repetitive. Not his best, but not a disaster or anything. I'll end up with another Blu ray and keep my full collection of his filmography at the end of the day.

my local cinema has it in the digital poster rotation showing relevant movies, and it DOES intrigue me, but if i try to look it up on local cinema website it simply doesn't exist. i cannot find out if it already played or if it's going to play or what the deal is. CONFOUNDING

I'm kind of keen on this, but I don't see any screenings scheduled in the UK yet :( I don't get on with Hosoda that much because I thought Summer Wars and Belle both felt like he was remaking his Digimon movie, but without the Digimon. Scarlet appeals to me because it's not set in modern day Japan, but having a very cursory look at Japanese reviews, I wonder if this is part of why Japanese audiences disliked it? Apparently they were doing omnibus showings of his previous films in the run-up to Scarlet, and some people disliked that this film was too "European" by comparison. I'm not sure if that's the animation style or the content. I enjoy the big summer blockbuster anime films by Hosoda and Shinkai, but I do find something frustrating that they all seem to either be about high school students falling in love, or wee kids growing up. I was watching some of Mamoru Oshii's films from the 80s and 90s and really missing big budget speculative sci-fi anime films about adults. Oh well. Will definitely watch Scarlet if it finally comes out here.

Story of a lot of animated movies recently: “Well the animation/music is the best I’ve ever seen. Wish they had focused on the story a bit more too”

I have not seen the movie, but I do speak Japanese! The movie is generally rated like 3/5 on review sites and opinions are all over the place. In general, I get the impression it got a lot of very negative reviews. Lots of reviews saying "its better than the bad reviews imply" and one review from social media quoted a few times says "I spend 2000 yen to spend 112 minutes in prison"

I surprisingly saw this! It’s surprising because I don’t really like anime, and never really heard of this movie (I found out afterwards that the director is well-loved, but gonna be honest I had only heard of *Belle* before this movie). I kinda just wanted to go to the movies on Saturday and so that’s what I did. Gonna post my thoughts before I watch your vlog: I didn’t really like it. I thought the story was just okay. I liked the world building concept plenty, but the resolution didn’t the cool world they made to its full potential. Kinda the same with the Hamlet thing. Fine, but not exceptionally utilized. I will say I loved the visuals. As I said I don’t like anime, but there was enough really cool visuals that I was able to get past that. I also just kinda really liked the two main characters. Again, the ending wasn’t that strong for me, but I still overall liked them. Especially Scarlet. As much as I didn’t really like the story I thought the visuals were good enough, I’m glad it’s what I decided to see on Saturday. IMAX was a nice touch although I just want to complain it’s a 2.39:1 movie inside a 1.78:1 container projected onto a 1.90:1 screen. No reason for that at all.

Was really excited to hear your take on it. Got the same buzz about a bomb so I was pleasantly surprised. I walked out saying very similar things about quite liking it but that they should have ended it before that final scene. I got very little promo for it. Only barely tracked it.