I'm Not A Master, I'm A Director
Chapter 394: A Beautiful Heroine Is What Truly Matters!
The trailer began in complete darkness.
Then, a woman's quiet murmur echoed through the theater.
"If you accept everything… you won't be hurt."
"Things that don't suit you. Things you despise. Things you cannot acknowledge."
"If you accept them all without resistance, you won't be hurt. But if you reject everything… you will only be hurt."
"Things that suit you. Things you like. Things you can acknowledge."
"If you reject them without hesitation… you will only be hurt."
It was the opening monologue of The Hollow Shrine from the original novel of The Garden of Sinners—the very first soliloquy of Shiki Ryougi.
Through those words alone, the audience could feel her loneliness.
"Within two hearts lie affirmation and negation. And between them… there is nothing. Within them… there is only me."
"Within those two hearts… there is emptiness."
As the monologue ended, the screen brightened.
The first image of the trailer appeared—
A dim hospital room.
The corridors were silent. The poor lighting made the hallway seem unnaturally deep and shadowed, as if something inhuman might crawl out at any moment.
Then they saw her.
Shiki Ryougi sat weakly on a hospital bed, her expression pale and hollow, staring blankly at the white sheets before her.
The sight of the fragile, sickly beauty only deepened the audience's curiosity about what she had endured.
Seated beside the bed, Touko spoke casually, almost indifferently.
"Ryougi Shiki… do you really care that much about the 'you' that was lost?"
The line had been deliberately edited out of order by Shinji, not to mislead the audience, but to make the trailer's emotional core easier to grasp.
Shiki lowered her voice.
"You're not a doctor… are you?"
"No. I'm a magus."
Shibamatsu leaned toward his friend and whispered, "Is this recreating Shirou and Kiritsugu's first meeting or something?"
Was this going to be another story where a bespectacled woman rescues a girl in a hospital bed, becomes her hero, and sets off a chain of events where the girl follows her in admiration?
But that thought was quickly dispelled.
The next shot showed Shiki suddenly thrusting a knife toward Touko, only for flames to erupt and block the strike.
The abrupt shift in scenery made it obvious the trailer was spliced from multiple scenes. Yet Shiki's cold expression gave no hint of the circumstances under which they were clashing.
Then came the confrontation.
Shiki stepping into an underground parking lot.
Waiting at the other end stood her opponent in this film—
Fujino Asagami.
The two women faced each other across the vast, empty space.
Then Fujino moved.
The surrounding structures twisted unnaturally, metal bending as if gripped by invisible hands.
The explosion that followed—distinctly Shinji's style—ignited the trailer's climax.
Several audience members jerked backward in their seats in fright.
Their startled reactions drew a few annoyed murmurs, as some had missed the fragmented shots that flashed immediately afterward.
Shibamatsu, however, remained unimpressed.
Even though he hadn't flinched, he still hadn't caught every frame.
Of the rapid cuts, only two sequences stuck clearly in his mind—
A well-endowed woman pinned against a desk, and Shiki dancing beneath the moonlight, blade in hand.
He swore he remembered those two scenes not because he only paid attention to girls, but because those shots so perfectly captured feminine beauty… from two entirely different dimensions.
Just who was that woman pressed against the table?
She looked like the film's primary antagonist—but what could have driven her to such madness?
And why was Shiki dancing alone under the moon?
Instead of answering questions, the trailer only multiplied them.
Fortunately, Shinji had no intention of leaving the audience completely bewildered.
After the rapid montage, the Type-Moon logo appeared on screen, giving viewers a brief moment to steady themselves.
Then came two longer, interwoven sequences.
Through them, the trailer introduced the two central figures—Fujino Asagami and Shiki Ryougi—revealing their circumstances and presenting them as mirrored opposites, reflections of one another standing at the edge of the same abyss.
After her failed suicide attempt, Shiki Ryougi lost one of her personalities.
In exchange, she awakened the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception.
Yet compared to the protagonist, it was Fujino Asagami's introduction that left a deeper impression on the audience.
They watched with their own eyes as she transformed from a timid, gentle girl with a soft expression to someone whose face gradually twisted until she became the unstable, unhinged young woman from the trailer's opening.
Once the two heroines had been properly introduced, the trailer entered its second half.
After delivering a few more stunning action cuts, Shinji finally brought the preview to its climax.
In a parking structure ravaged by typhoon winds and floodwaters, Shiki wiped the rain from her face. Staring at Fujino in the distance, her voice rang out—calm, resolute.
"Even if you're a god… I'll kill you."
At that moment, her eyes burst into radiant, prismatic light.
The trailer ended.
Across the screen appeared the bold title—
The Garden of Sinners.
As the soaring background music reached its peak, the entire theater erupted into applause.
They weren't just cheering for the Garden of Sinners trailer, they were expressing their gratitude for the brilliance of Fate/Apocrypha.
"Feels like watching old cinema again."
Robert Iger remained seated, not joining the applause.
The decision to place the trailer after the film had finished gave him a strange sense of returning to his childhood.
In English, a movie preview is called a "trailer."
Originally, trailers were shown after the main feature—intended to entice audiences to return for the next screening.
The term itself, referring to a vehicle being pulled behind a truck, was fitting. The preview was an attachment, an add-on.
But with the rise of television and internet media, post-film trailers had become increasingly rare.
Seeing The Garden of Sinners preview attached to Fate/Apocrypha stirred something nostalgic within him.
Nostalgia aside, however, whether it was Fate/Apocrypha or the upcoming Garden of Sinners, both stood as competitors to Disney's own films.
As a professional executive, Iger kept his personal feelings and business calculations clearly separated.
"The horror atmosphere in that trailer was pretty heavy. Did Shinji switch genres?" another Disney executive beside him murmured.
Iger glanced at his colleague, then quietly rose to his feet amid the ongoing applause.
"Let's go. No need to stay any longer."
"Right."
The two of them headed toward the exit.
Professionally speaking, they both understood something—
Compared to Fate/Stay Night and Fate/Zero, this installment's narrative strength was somewhat weaker.
The character focus leaned heavily toward Jeanne and Amakusa. It lacked the ensemble cast dynamic—the sense of multiple characters competing for attention—that had defined earlier Fate stories.
But the film remained highly entertaining, and the visual effects were spectacular.
Even as competitors, they could sense that this film would perform well in the market.
"Looks like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is going to be cannon fodder. Let's hope Cinderella holds its ground."
As he stepped outside the cinema, Iger allowed himself a small measure of relief.
At least Disney hadn't been the one colliding head-on with Fate/Apocrypha.
True, next month their Pirates of the Caribbean would be competing against The Garden of Sinners, but both were new installments. That was far preferable to taking a direct hit from Fate/Apocrypha at peak momentum.
"Still… The Garden of Sinners can't be underestimated. We'll need to think about how to counter it."
Recalling the trailer he had just watched, Iger's expression tightened once more.
Just then—
"Father, what did you think?"
Inside the theater, Mordred had already taken advantage of the end credits to sneak over to Arturia's side.
"So? Was the movie good?"
"It was quite good," Arturia replied objectively. "Though it doesn't surpass my Stay Night."
"Well, of course. Father, you're the best."
Mordred offered the compliment smoothly, then her expression grew awkward, her voice dropping.
"Father… about me in the movie…"
"Your acting was solid. You delivered your role properly."
Arturia's tone remained calm, matter-of-fact.
"That's not what I meant… I was asking what you thought… about my feelings in the film… actually, I…"
Mordred's hesitant mumbling made Arturia's brow crease slightly.
"Mordred," she said directly, "if you have something to say, speak plainly."
"Then I—"
"—Mordred! What are you still doing back there?!"
Shinji's voice cut her off.
"Hurry up and get to the front for the curtain call. There's a short press interview afterward. We're on a tight schedule, you don't want to pull an all-nighter, do you?"
"…Right."
Mordred deflated instantly, shoulders slumping as she stepped away from her father's side.
As she passed Shinji, she muttered under her breath, "Master… one of these days, you're getting kicked to death by a horse."
Shinji knew exactly what she meant.
"Cut the nonsense," he shot back. "I'm going home to sleep."
Mordred didn't bother arguing. She simply raised her middle finger in friendly farewell.
◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆
Outside the cinema, Li Ri'ang was still enthusiastically discussing Fate/Apocrypha with Shibamatsu and the others he had just met.
Because it was so late, Kariya hadn't assigned him any further tasks tonight and had told him to head home and rest.
Unfortunately, Li Ri'ang only heard the first half of that sentence.
Rest? What rest?
Chatting about movies with new friends was clearly more important.
"This film is fundamentally about Jeanne's spiritual journey," Li Ri'ang declared passionately. "She begins firm in her resolve to save humanity, falls into doubt midway through, and then reaffirms her conviction, overcoming her personal fears in the process."
He raised his fist, mimicking Jeanne's Noble Phantasm pose from the film.
"A good movie should resonate with its audience. Apocrypha absolutely achieved that. That final sacrifice scene almost made me cry."
"I agree," Shibamatsu nodded. "The Jeanne in this film was almost selflessly devoted to others, there's barely any personal desires at all."
"But her charisma was incredible," Fujita added. "I can totally understand why the Baron would become so obsessed with her. If it were me, I'd give everything for the Saint too."
The conversation flowed effortlessly.
Before long, they decided to head to an izakaya not far from the theater for a late-night snack.
What they ate didn't really matter.
The important thing was having a place to sit and keep talking.
After a bite of grilled chicken and a sip of beer, Shibamatsu voiced another thought.
"At least this Saint is way better than Luc Besson's crazy version, whether it's her looks, her behavior, or her ideals."
As one of the most famous women in European history, Joan of Arc had always been a favorite subject for filmmakers.
Before Shinji's Fate/Apocrypha, the largest-scale adaptation was the 1999 film The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, directed by Luc Besson.
But that version's storytelling could only be described as… complicated.
It wasn't the Saint that most people imagined.
It was Besson's personal interpretation of the historical Joan.
As a result, aside from her patriotic fervor, the film's Jeanne came across as nearly fanatical—almost unstable.
To make matters more striking, the actress portraying Jeanne was Milla Jovovich—best known as the heroine of Resident Evil.
You couldn't exactly call her unattractive, but that sharp, rugged facial structure really did lean a little too far into the "tough girl" category.
Even without the built-in affection bonus from the Type-Moon universe, most people would probably still prefer the Jeanne from Fate.
Sure, she might share Arturia's face, but at least she was an adorable heroine!
And don't assume Western audiences dislike Japanese-style beautiful girls.
After all, Tifa from Final Fantasy VII has practically been dubbed the "Holy Land of Jerusalem" in the hearts of men worldwide.
That said, if one were to evaluate sheer thematic depth and religious symbolism in character construction, Shinji's Fate/Apocrypha undeniably couldn't match Luc Besson's The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc.
Although the two most important characters in the film—Jeanne and Amakusa—were both Christians, Shinji himself wasn't.
His portrayal relied mostly on his knowledge of Type-Moon lore and consultation with the production's church advisors.
If there was one thing he did better than Higashide in handling religious elements, it was simply avoiding obvious factual mistakes.
And that was precisely what many critics took issue with.
[In terms of character development, Fate/Apocrypha barely scratches the surface beyond outlining the protagonists' backgrounds. None of the characters are deeply explored; everything remains superficial.]
[This is supposed to be a conflict between two believers, yet Director Shinji Matou never delves into their faith. He merely borrows their religious identities as window dressing. That's disappointing.]
[Thankfully, the action sequences are exciting enough to keep the film from being dull. But that's all it offers. Like Shinji's other films, it's ultimately empty entertainment—wasting such promising source material.]
As for such reviews, Shinji had long since grown used to them.
"Nutritional value" in a commercial blockbuster?
What, did you not get enough to eat at home?
If you're that hungry for substance, should he ask Director Ace and Chef Beta to cook you a proper meal and fatten you up a bit?
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Latest Chapter: Chapter 429: Another Poor Kid Who Gets Sold and Still Says Thanks[1]
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