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Genre: Comedy, Fantasy, Mystery
Channel: Netflix
Language: Japanese
Duration: 107 minutes
Writer: Aito Aoyagi, Yûichi Fukuda, Tetsurô Kamata
Director: Yûichi Fukuda
Cast: Kanna Hashimoto, Yûko Araki,
Takanori Iwata, Kimura Midoriko, Kiritani Mirei, Kaji Masaki
Introduction:
The movie is a hybrid of an age old fairy tale, infused with a character from another popular fairy tale, plonked with a murder mystery and smart logics to solve it.
Plot:
On her way through a lush green forest, Little Red Riding Hood (Kanna Hashimoto), the girl who perennially wears a red hood gifted by her beloved grandmother, first meets a witch Barbara (Kimura Midoriko) whose magic is apparently ineffective with changeover of shoes and then bumps into the shabbily dressed Cinderella (Yûko Araki) with bruised feet and no footwear.
The aforementioned witch re-appears and gives them a magical makeover, by dressing them in fineries, turning a pumpkin into a carriage and three mice into two carriage horses and a carriage driver respectively.
Another witch Tekla (Kiritani Mirei) appears who is apparently good with shoe magic and adorns both the girls' feet with lovely glass shoes.
The former witch's magic is effective only till midnight while the latter's is effective for full 24 hours! Also all her magical glass shoes only fit the person who has worn them first.
Riding in a pumpkin shaped carriage, both the decked up girls leave for the royal castle to attend the grand ball where Prince Gilbert (Takanori Iwata) will choose his bride.
Midway in the forest, their carriage bumps into a corpse! Confused about it's identity and scared of any kind of scandal, they hide it beneath the dry leaves.
At the royal ball, amongst the bevy of beautiful girls, the prince chooses Cinderella for the couple dance and she instantly falls in love with him.
But soon the news of the aforementioned corpse who is recognized as Hans (Kaji Masaki), the royal hairdresser, reaches the castle along with and a raggedly dressed girl with hooded face, irking the king and turning everything topsy-turvy.
Who solves the murder mystery and how? Who does the prince eventually choose as his bride?
Watch the movie to satiate your quench for all such queries.
Analysis:
Filled with scenes of lush green forests with wide canopy trees, beautiful elaborate costumes and abundant cute accessories, the movie is quite picturesque and repeatedly gives the social message to not just love & honor beauty.
In spite of being a murder mystery, it is overall funny and entertaining.
All the characters have acted well. However the cranky laugh and sounds of witch Barbara are quite disturbing.
Throughout the movie, the clues are left like breadcrumbs which are finally put together to solve the case with alarming reveals.
Smartest of all the crumbs is the fact that the glass slippers don't poof off at midnight but their magic stays for full 24 hours.
How come we never questioned the existence of the glass slippers even after the midnight, in the original Cinderella story?
Conclusion:
Once Upon a Crime is a relaxing and enjoyable movie with good ending.
If you have a liking for fairy tales, then do watch it.
