Brief Story Line
When Little Red Riding Hood (Kanna Hashimoto - Gintama, One Page Love TV series etc) grew up, she decided to go on an adventure to have experience in life. One day she met with the poor Cinderella (Yuko Araki - Million Yen Women TV series, See Hear Love etc) who had been abused by her step sisters and their mother. Red Riding Hood decided to accompany Cinderella to the ball that was held by the King (Jiro Sato - The Fable: The Killer Who doesn't Kill etc) to find a wife for Prince Gilbert (Takanori Iwata - High & Low movies, Sherlock: Untold Stories TV serie etc).
However, during their trip to the castle, they somehow encountered the body of a person who was killed. Now Red Riding Hood must solve the mystery before the stroke of midnight.
So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Like I said above, I was intrigued by the premise of this movie which made me wanted to give it a try. As someone who knew the classic tale of Cinderella, it was obviously interesting when they made it into a mystery story. And it was even more fun as it was combined with another famous character Red Riding Hood (who was not little anymore). If you read the synopsis from Netflix, you would know that she was the lead character in this movie.
When the film started, it did not have the mysterious feel at first, but more comedic instead, especially with the appearance of the Witch Barbara (Midoriko Kimura) who was not the type you would see in normal fairytale. However, it did not take long before Red Riding Hood started to show her deducting capability. Even though it was not extraordinarily briliant but still enough to make me hold her in high regard.
As soon as the victim "showed up", the story became more interesting. The movie tried to give us some unexpected twists with a bit of diversion along the way to keep us guessing. Although once a character was introduced in the middle, I already knew how the ending woud be for the main characters. Nevertheless, I was unable to deduce what actually happen to the murder victim and the motive related to the crime. So I guess the movie maker was pretty successful in this area. If I am being critical though, I thought the crime was not that sophisticated and not really of the highest standard. I do not think it fit into the category of whodunit either as there were not many suspects to make us confused.
The movie had duration of 1 hour 47 minutes with closing credit that did not have any mid or post end credit scene. I did notice that it was based on the novel written by Aito Aoyagi who also served as one of the writers together with the director Yuichi Fukuda (HK: Forbidden Super Hero, Gintama etc) and Tetsuro Kamata (God of Novels, Persona Non Grata etc). Aside from the cast I mentioned above, there were some support characters as well like Cinderella's annoying step mother (Miki Maya - Sakura No Oyakodon TV series etc), her two daughters Anne (Natsuna - Sweet Revenge TV series etc) and Margot (Yumi Wakatsuki - Love Like the Falling Petals etc), the mouse Paul (Tsuyoshi Muro) and few others. The cast to me were not too impressive, particularly Yuko Araki and Takanori Iwata who did not seem convincing with the lack of face expression.
Overall this was an OK movie with a very interesting premise and high creativity of the author of the novel. But the execution could probably be done better with proper casting or at least bring out the best of the cast by the director. Since the mystery solving was not the most sophisticated one, it was not the real highlight of the film. It did however have some entertaining value, even if it might not be the best in its genre. So if you want to see a different kind of fairy tale, then this would fit into the category. Personally to me though, I would like it more with reasons I just said above.
Mike's Movie Moments Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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