Under his near-obsessive guidance, young ballerina Victoria Page is poised for superstardom, but earns Lermontov's scorn when she falls in love with Julian Craster, composer of "The Red Shoes ...

As a child, Manami attended her father Takuma's boxing matches and marveled at the scarlet shoes he wore ... comes to pick her up from the Fukuoka Red Light and promises to make a champion ...

This version of The Red Shoes shirks none of Anderson's ruthlessness or darkness. Fairytale this may be, but its bleak warning against wanton behaviour under threat of a gory demise holds nothing ...