Review of 'Once Upon a Crime (Akazukin, tabi no tochû de shitai to dea)'

I stumbled across this Japanese film (dubbed into English) on Netflix. It looked like it might be interesting…

Little Red Riding Hood (Kanna Hashimoto) meets Cinderella (Yuko Araki) in the woods where they encounter two witches - Tekla (Mirei Kiritani) and Barbara (Midoriko Kimura). They express their desire to go to the ball so the witches dress them both in ballgowns and, of course, glass slippers. As they travel to the ball in a magical beautiful carriage it runs over something. To their horror they discover a body under the wheels but it is clear that the person was dead before they ran it over. Determined to make it to the ball they continue on their way. Soon Cinderella has had her dance with Prince Gilbert (Takanori Iwata) they are interrupted when guards announce that a body has been discovered and they are examining the carriages to see who ran over it…

A low-budget mixture of fantasy and detective story is actually quite watchable with a genuinely surprising ending. The plot is not all that elaborate but it does entertain throughout with a delightful innocence and more-than-slightly camp feeling to the whole thing. It seems a bit like an elaborate cosplay than a film but that is ok and it works quite well here. The effects are, as you might expect, not that great and neither is the acting particularly but I think that is part of the charm.

Thought I can't really recommend the film for everyone if you are interested in cosplay or fantasy and have an hour and 45 minutes to kill, this is reasonable enough to watch though Lord knows there are much better films of this kind available though perhaps not with the cosy, light, amateurish feel that this one has.

Rating: “It is OK but I have some issues”

Review Date: 2025-08-16

Directed by: Yûichi Fukuda

Studio: Credeus

Year: 2023

Length: 107 minutes

Genre: Fantasy

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15944018/