An angry mob of protesters waving banners and wielding bats advances on a government building protected by black-clad riot police. Hooded hotheads break open the gates and all hell breaks loose.

The scene looks as if it could have been filmed yesterday at an anti-austerity riot in Athens or an Occupy demonstration in Oakland, California. But then a figure emerges, a beret-clad scar-faced military man who strides up to the protesters and snarls: "What's the matter, you dissentious rogues, that rubbing the poor itch of your opinion, make yourself scabs?"

Welcome to Ralph Fiennes' "Coriolanus" (Japanese title: "Eiyu no Shomei"), the leanest, most savage adaptation of Shakespeare to ever hit the screen. For his directorial debut, the respected English actor takes one of the Bard's more difficult plays and places it entirely in the contemporary world, full of flak-jacketed paramilitaries with automatic weapons, slick-suited politicians playing to the cameras, and a chorus of TV news flashes.