In age where movies make $2 billion and somehow make little cultural impact, the success of William Shakespeare seems unthinkable. He wrote plays over 400 years ago and we’re all still obsessed with them. Not all of them, of course. There aren’t a lot of “Timon of Athens” revamps on anyone’s agenda, but the big ones like “Hamlet” are still alive and they’re still thriving.
In 2025 alone, we’ve already seen at least two films inspired by Shakespeare’s classic tale of revenge and mortality: the haunting yet kooky machinima documentary “Grand Theft Hamlet,” and Chloé Zhao’s on-the-nose, heavy-handed “making of” drama “Hamnet.” Heck, even Taylor Swift got in on the action with “The Fate of Ophelia,” a hit single that was, unlike “Hamlet,” actually romantic.
But the best? That was saved for last. Mamoru Hosoda’s anime feature “Scarlet” is a provocative and daring new take on Shakespeare’s greatest play. His epic anime gender swaps the lead role, so Scarlet (Mana Ashida) is the Princess of Denmark. Her uncle Claudius (Kōji Yakusho) slays her father, marries her mother Gertrude (Yutaka Matsushige), and embarks on a reign of terror. Scarlet swears she’ll have her revenge, but her plan backfires. So she dies, and that’s where the movie starts.
Scarlet/Hamlet’s lust for vengeance is so insatiable, not even death quash it. So she scours Purgatory, or possibly Hell, in search of the soul of Claudius, who has amassed an army of the dead, and plans to storm his way upwards to salvation. Along the way Scarlet makes an alliance with the pacifist Hijiri (Masaki Okada), a 21st century paramedic, because time has no meaning in the afterlife. All eras are one and the same.
What happens in “Hamlet” is just as relevant as what’s happening right now, and will ever happen, according to Hosoda. On one hand this gives his “Scarlet” free reign to explore multiple cultures and philosophies and, just for fun, even fighting styles. On the other, it brings the filmmaker’s thesis to the foreground. This isn’t just a passionate tale of one young royal’s revenge, it’s a cycle that’s perpetuated in real life — and in our stories — with every generation. The wars we fight today, “Scarlet” argues, are the direct result of the battles we fought in the past, and the stories we keep telling about violence. Stories like, for example, “Hamlet.”
If you dangled me outside a window and demanded I tell you who the greatest living filmmaker was, I’d be too terrified to form any conscious thoughts. But I can avoid that right now and just say the answer is, probably, Hosoda. The director of magical, beautiful, heart-rending films like “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time,” “Summer Wars,” “Wolf Children,” “The Boy and the Beast” and “Mirai” has an uncanny ability to connect grand, fantastical visions with real-life heartache. I’ve lost many a salty tear to Hosoda’s beautiful mind, even if his previous sci-fi epic, “Belle,” left me a little cold.
“Scarlet” might be his most narratively ambitious work to date, adapting and warping one of the most famous tales ever told, adding new layers of complexity, and centuries of new, invaluable context. It’s easy to fall into a trap and treat “Scarlet” like some kind of college thesis, picking apart its intricate arguments and dramatic subversions. You could get a lot out of this film by indulging in critical analysis, but you would miss the bigger picture.
At its heart, “Scarlet” — wild, enormous, flying electricity dragon and all — is a film about values. So, in many ways, was “Hamlet,” since Shakespeare’s title character spends half the play pondering the ethics of vengeance and less than half doing any avenging. But Shakespeare’s rendition, like all his tragedies, culminated with a pile of corpses. Hosada’s version begins with corpses and works its way back to life. “Scarlet” is a celebration of life and possibilities, a hopeful interpretation of a tale that famously ends in bloodshed.
The question, “Scarlet” asks, while traveling through time and even discovering modern pop music, is not “to be or not to be,” it’s why “be” in the first place? Why die in the last place? Why must our tales always end the same way, and why can’t peace and love satisfy our souls like misery and pain?
While films like “Hamnet” mawkishly force Shakespeare’s text into a tiny box, so as not to distract from their relatively simplistic storylines and goals, “Scarlet” takes the whole play and explodes it. We watch sparks fly and marvel at the intricate shrapnel, and instead of putting it back together again, Hosoda builds something strangely familiar yet new: a wondrous hybrid of the ancient and the modern, of classical action thrills and subdued, peaceful philosophy. While other recent “Hamlets” exploit our familiarity with Shakespeare’s work, “Scarlet” doesn’t use it as a form of shorthand. Hosoda tries, instead, to add to “Hamlet’s” legacy—and he does a fascinating job of it.
