Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs

Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs, known in Korean as simply Red Shoes (레드슈즈, Redeu Syujeu) is a 2019 South Korean computer-animated fantasy film produced by Locus Corporation. It is based on the German language fairy tale "Snow White" by the Brothers Grimm, and its name is derived from the Danish fairy tale The Red Shoes by Hans Christian Andersen. The English dub of the film features the voices of Chloë Grace Moretz, Sam Claflin, Gina Gershon, Patrick Warburton, and Jim Rash.

Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs
South Korean theatrical release poster
Directed bySung-ho Hong
Written bySung-ho Hong
Produced by
  • SuJin Hwang
  • HyungSoon Kim
Starring
Music byGeoff Zanelli
Production
company
Locus Corporation
Distributed byNext Entertainment World[1]
Release date
  • July 25, 2019 (2019-07-25)
Running time
93 minutes
CountrySouth Korea
LanguageEnglish
Box office$9.7 million

Plot

On Fairy Tale Island, a group of heroic villagers called the Fearless Seven – Merlin, Arthur, Jack, Hans, and triplets Pino, Noki and Kio – save a Fairy Princess from a dragon. However, after seeing her green face, they assume she is a witch and attack her. To teach them a lesson, she curses them to transform into ugly, green dwarves whenever people look at them. The curse can only be broken by a kiss from "the most beautiful woman in the world", which they believe is impossible since they are so ugly.

About a year later, a woman, Regina, visits a blossoming apple tree in a castle as a bell tolls overhead. The tree bears two apples, which turn into shoes. The woman puts the shoes on, hoping they will bring eternal youth and beauty, but they fail to work. She leaves upset and discards the shoes on the floor, where three small, wooden bears sweep them into a pile of other shoes. Night falls, and Princess Snow White, the overweight but strong and kind daughter of King White, sneaks into the room for clues to help find her missing father. She finds a message from her father telling her to find the seven and not to trust apples. As the sun rises, she finds a pair of red shoes growing on the tree. Snow puts on the shoes and transforms into a slim version of herself. Regina suddenly enters and attacks, unaware that the slender woman is Snow. Snow escapes on a broomstick. Soon after, Regina consults the magic mirror and tries to locate the shoe thief. The mirror tells her about someone who could help her. In the forest, the dwarves are walking home when Snow careens through the sky and crashes at the dwarves' house. They see the broomstick and her silhouette and prepare to attack, thinking she is the Fairy Princess, but six of them pause upon seeing her beauty. Hans, instructed to attack her from behind, knocks her out. When she wakes up, they welcome her into their home. Snow is shocked to see herself in the mirror and renames herself "Red Shoes". The seven then offer to help her find her dad, hoping to get a kiss in exchange.

That very afternoon, Regina visits the man the mirror told her about. Prince Average is looking for guests for his birthday party when Regina suggests Red Shoes. They make their deal and Regina leaves.

That night, Red Shoes draws a missing poster for her father. She then takes her shoes off in her room while the dwarves aren't around. She slips them back on when Jack knocks, but doesn't have time to take them off again before she sees a figure outside. Assuming the person is her father, Red Shoes goes after him through her window. Meanwhile, Merlin searches for a book on his bookshelf. He glimpses Red Shoes as she runs off into the night and follows. Red Shoes encounters a large, wooden bunny, and Merlin attacks it. As the two are running, Merlin tries to impress her by attacking with his spells, but he gets stepped on as his plan is thwarted. Red Shoes gets cornered by the bunny, but Arthur swoops in and presumably knocks it out. Jack, Hans, and the triplets arrive before Merlin makes his way over, and then the group starts heading back. On the way back, Arthur suggests Red Shoes give him a kiss for his actions, to which she slaps him instead. The others laugh at Arthur as they head back. Later, Arthur forms a plan to find Red Shoes' father and get a kiss from her. He gives Jack, Hans, and the triplets more dangerous missions while he and Red Shoes would go to a pleasant place. He stations Merlin at their home. Merlin complains, but the rest of the crew agrees. In the morning, Red Shoes hands out the abstract-style missing posters of her father as the dwarves prepare to go on their missions. Merlin comments about her father being on "the big side", to which Red Shoes responds fondly that she is similar to him before changing her story to say she looks like her mother. The groups head to their missions while Merlin stays behind.

Arthur takes Red Shoes to Excalibur, where Red Shoes removes the sword and Arthur fails to take it out. Back at the dwarves' home, Merlin pouts while eating carrots. Hungry, the wooden bunny follows the carrots, which gives Merlin an idea. Using carrots are a lure, he rides the bunny all the way to Golden Goose Avenue, where Red Shoes and Arthur are heading. A sad Arthur guides Red Shoes to a lovely city where the two ask around about King White. Red Shoes unintentionally makes most of the people there fall in love with her beauty and kindness. When she joins up with Arthur again, she notices a wanted poster for herself. Moments later, she is noticed by Prince Average's two main guards. They chase her into an alley, where she hides behind a mirror with her shoes off. They leave her alone, not knowing who she is. In the street, Arthur calls for her, but instead encounters Merlin and the bunny. Red Shoes as Snow is approached by several guards who take one of her shoes. She answers the dwarves' calls but they ignore her. When a guard calls the dwarves hideous, she headbutts him, but she gets cornered by the guards until Merlin zaps them and gives her the shoe back. He asks if they've met, which she answers vaguely before he leaves again. She exits the alley to rejoin her friends, but when she sees the twin guards, she runs away. Merlin takes her up onto the bunny and runs away. Arthur joins the two by a field of purple flowers. Merlin gets an idea and draws a larger version of the missing poster in the flowers. When Red Shoes leans in towards him, Merlin puckers up for a kiss, but she blows the petals off his face instead. The group then heads home. The twin guards find the drawing and leave; seconds after, the three bears find the drawing and head to the written location.

Later, Merlin gathers carrots from a small farm on the rock and daydreams about Red Shoes. Arthur interrupts him angrily and the two bicker for a minute before a net is thrown over them. Inside, as the dwarves give nice things to Red Shoes, Average tells them to give Red Shoes up in exchange for Merlin and Arthur. She steps outside and tells him to let them go first. He does, but when he tries to take Red Shoes with him, she punches him. He orders his guards to attack. A battle ensues, during which Red Shoes is held back, the wooden bunny is released, and the triplets reveal a new invention: a large, wooden mech with a long nose. The triplets wipe out the enemy, but only for a moment before cannons are brought forward. They take down the mech and almost hit Red Shoes, but hit the house instead as Merlin saves her. The house's facade starts to crack, giving Merlin an idea. He leads the others to safety while the facade falls on the enemies. Prince Average survives and runs off, swearing to return on Thursday. Red Shoes hugs Merlin.

That night, Red Shoes and Merlin grow closer to each other in the barn. During this time, Red Shoes notices that Merlin seems to pay attention to looks more than other aspects of people. Merlin tells her he can't wait for her to see the real him. He asks Red Shoes to close her eyes and imagine the real him. She does, but tells him that whether her eyes are open or closed, to her, he is still Merlin. He writes off her honest opinions about him as a joke. Red Shoes then tries to take the shoes off, but they won't budge. Meanwhile, Regina visits Average and his bodyguards, threatens them, and gives them apples for "strength". Instead, the apples turn them into monstrous wooden bears.

The next day, the dwarves and Red Shoes attempt to put the facade of the house back together. They paint it together and admire their work. The triplets show off their copier invention by making copies of the missing poster. They want to distribute the posters quickly with their mech, but it won't fly anymore. Merlin, jealous of the attention the triplets are getting, grabs the broom to solve the flight problem. Soon, he, the triplets, and Red Shoes are flying over the city, letting fly the missing posters. Red Shoes tells Merlin she's happy she met him, and Merlin agrees. Unfortunately, they crash into a tree a moment later.

In a secluded part of the forest, Red Shoes tries to give Merlin a hint about her real self, but he doesn't seem to get it. She makes him a good luck charm out of one of his spells, then confesses her feelings for him. The two of them kiss. Merlin is shocked to see that the kiss did not undo his curse, as he still thinks Red Shoes is the prophesied woman. Their moment is interrupted by Average and his guards. The two run away as Merlin fights off the attack, eventually knocking all three off the cliff into the river, but as Average falls, he takes Merlin with him. Red Shoes saves Merlin by removing the shoes and regaining her strength, exposing herself as Snow White. The two are found on the riverbank by the friendly wooden animals. That night, Snow pointedly asks Merlin if he would have helped her real self, but Merlin doesn't answer out of shame. After the campfire dies, he leaves, and the wooden bunny goes with him. She then puts the shoes back on, thinking Merlin still likes her for her looks more than herself. Merlin imagines a conversation with his dwarf self and, realizing that Snow White likes him for who he is on the inside, decides to help her. In the forest, Regina disguises herself as Merlin and asks Red Shoes to eat an apple to help remove her shoes, but the real Merlin arrives, and the exposed witch abducts her stepdaughter.

Merlin chases after the witch on the bunny, sending the bears to get the other dwarves. The bunny shows Merlin to a secret entrance into the castle. In the castle, Regina again tries to force Snow White to eat the apple, first by offering information after she eats, then resorting to threatening to kill a captured Merlin. Snow eats the apple and transforms into a new apple tree. Merlin fights the magic mirror, but fails to escape until the other dwarves arrive. Merlin tackles Regina into the pit beneath that part of the castle, sacrificing himself to save Snow. With Regina dead, the wooden animals they befriended change back into humans, including King White. As Snow embraces her father, she realizes Merlin is gone. After being told what happened, she mourns, but Pino, Noki, and Kio find Merlin and take him to Snow. Barely alive, he tells her she is the most beautiful woman whether his eyes are open or closed. After he dies in her arms, she kisses him, transforming him back into a prince and restoring him to health. Merlin and Snow White happily accept each other's appearances, while Arthur remains confused by Snow's true identity.

During the end credits, Snow and Merlin marry, while the other dwarves find their own unusual-looking girlfriends. The Fairy Princess fishes Prince Average out of a river and turns him into another green dwarf after he regards her rudely.

Cast

  • Chloë Grace Moretz as Princess Snow White/Red Shoes; a rewritten version of the classic fairy tale character, who is more overweight than the original character by the Brothers Grimm. Kind and selfless, she compensates for her plump figure by being a strong fighter. Her alias, "Red Shoes" is based on a Hans Christian Andersen story of the same name.
  • Sam Claflin as Merlin; a heroic, athletic, but somewhat conceited prince and the leader of the Fearless Seven, who fights using magical lightning and initially believes looks are what make a woman desirable.
  • Gina Gershon as Queen Regina; Snow White's stepmother and an evil witch seeking to steal back Snow White's shoes to achieve immortality and eternal youth.
  • Patrick Warburton as the Magic Mirror; a snarky, talking mirror based on the Evil Queen's mirror of the original story. He is part of a magical tree and controls its branches.
  • Jim Rash as Prince Average; a selfish, weak-willed prince who tries to force Snow White to be his birthday date.
  • Simon Kassianides as Arthur; Merlin's closest friend, his rival for Snow White's affection, and the second-in-command of the Fearless Seven, who fights with swords.
  • Frederik Hamel as Jack; an arrogant, French-accented prince in the Fearless Seven, who fights using an invisibility cloak and believes women are most interested in diamonds.
  • Nolan North as Hans, the Twin Guards, and King White.
    • Hans is a pastry chef and one of the Fearless Seven, whose main weapon is a shield that doubles as a frying pan and believes women can be won over with confectionery.
    • The Twin Guards are two muscular but dim bodyguards of Prince Average.
    • King White is Snow White's slightly overweight but loving father and Regina's husband.
  • Frank Todaro as Pino, Noki, and Kio; inventive, identical triplets in the Fearless Seven who fight using a giant wooden robot of their creation.
  • Brian T. Delaney as Big Bunny and Sculptor.
  • Piotr Michael and Benjamin Diskin as two armored knights sent by Regina to find Snow White.
  • Ava Kolker, Asher Blinkoff, and Juju Journey Brener as the Wooden Bear Cubs.

Additional voices by Brian T. Delaney, Benjamin Diskin, Terri Douglas, Piotr Michael, Amanda Troop, and Kari Wahlgren.

Reception

Critical reception

Reception of the film has mixed.[2][3][4] On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a score of 40% from 5 reviews.[5]

Fat shaming controversy

A marketing campaign for the film revealed at the 2017 Cannes Marche du Film was criticized by critics and audiences for alleged fat shaming.[6] Chloë Grace Moretz, who portrayed Snow/Red Shoes, stated she was "appalled" by the marketing that she felt it did not reflect the actual film's message.[7][8] The production company immediately terminated the campaign and issued an apology, stating:

As the producer of the theatrical animated film "Red Shoes and the 7 Dwarfs," now in production, Locus Corporation wishes to apologize regarding the first elements of our marketing campaign (in the form of a Cannes billboard and a trailer) which we realize has had the opposite effect from that which was intended. That advertising campaign is being terminated. Our film, a family comedy, carries a message designed to challenge social prejudices related to standards of physical beauty in society by emphasizing the importance of inner beauty. We appreciate and are grateful for the constructive criticism of those who brought this to our attention. We sincerely regret any embarrassment or dissatisfaction this mistaken advertising has caused to any of the individual artists or companies involved with the production of future distribution of the film, none of whom had any involvement with creating or approving the now discontinued advertising campaign.

Later sources, including organizations aimed at promoting good messaging in family entertainment, would be more sympathetic to the film, noting that Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs is "loaded with valuable lessons for children and adults[9]" and "promotes body image and self-acceptance, while confronting stereotypes.[10]"

See also

South Korean animation


References

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