What if the dead prince lived? One ring, one lie, and a man who dared crown himself.
The time of the restoration of imperial rule, some 20 years after the French Revolution. Gerald, who lives in the remote countryside near Paris, hears from a traveler that he is Louis XVII. Imprisoned with his parents Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette at the Tour du Temple, it is believed that he was killed as well after his parents were executed, but he is now told that he was secretly saved and brought away, and the body of the child in the Temple was a substitute. The traveler is wracked with illness, and after passing over a ring bearing the seal of Louis XVI, he dies. Being ambitious, Gerald decides to make use of this piece of evidence. What fate awaits this young man claiming to be Louis XVII...? Rallying against callous fate, he rises up in a world where he is surrounded by people of ambition and treachery, and amidst that callous fate the one ray of light comes from Anne, the girl Gerald loves.
Costume
Post-revolutionary fashion that screams 'we're pretending the guillotine never happened.'
Acting
Kozuki Wataru sells Gerald's hunger so hard you almost root for the scam.
Director
Satoru Nakamura
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Louis XVII impostors were an actual phenomenon—over 100 men claimed his identity in the 19th century, making Gerald part of a bizarre historical tradition.
Director Satoru Nakamura uses the Takarazuka aesthetic (he's from that world) to heighten the artificiality—Gerald's performance of royalty mirrors the film's own theatrical excess.
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