Fürst der Dämonen

I've seen several recent fantasy and sci-fi Russian movies and they all feel like the story is a badly assembled jigsaw. Is it that the Russian story makes sense and somehow they can't translate to English? I think that's unlikely. Viy is a strange combination of Dracula and Sleepy Hollow, with a few English actors to make it mainstream, but the rest, including cinematography, is Russian. Jason Flemyng plays the main character, an English scientist having to deal with Slavic superstition in "uncivilized" Russia (yes, it's not Transilvania, which is in Romania, I would have hoped Russians at least knew that), with Charles Dance in a few irrelevant scenes.

The idea was interesting, the special effects nice, but it felt like something was terribly wrong with the assembly of the scenes and the dialogues. You probably have to watch in Russian (if a version even exists).

I liked the movie. When I was going to see it I had already known that it was not a screen version of Nikolai Gogol's story but "a movie based on it". That's why I was not disappointed as some people who went to the theatre to see just a new version of 1967 "Viy". Because it is not.

This new "Viy" took the same legend from the book (based on a Slavic folklore legend), the same characters, the same location - a small Ukrainian out-of-the-way village, added some new characters , CGI (quite good), shuffled everything, sprinkled it with humour (sometimes dark)and eminently suitable music. And as a result, we have an interesting mystic story definitely worth watching.

This movie is probably quite unknown by most people. I certainly had never heard of it when I stumbled on it. It is a quite entertaining little fantasy / supernatural / crime movie though. I am actually not sure what to classify at as. It starts of as a fantasy movie but is it really? The cinematics of this movie is very good. For me it was the main part contributing to the enjoyment. The small world of these villagers is cinematically beautiful, dirty and gritty at the same time. The characters themselves with their enormous moustaches and weirdly cut hair are great. The special effects will perhaps not win any awards but they were good nonetheless. I especially liked the transformation scene during the meal somewhere in the middle of the movie.

The story is a bit of a roller coaster ride and sometimes it felt a bit disjointed. It was not really obvious why one scene or event was followed by another at all times. But then, taking into account the later events in the movie it was perhaps meant to be a bit disjointed and "dreamy" and I have to confess that I was extremely tired when watching this movie.

The ending was a bit of a surprise. This is where the movie kind of went from a fantasy movie to more of a crime story. I have to say that I did not really see that coming until it was about to fall in my lap.

There are definitely worse ways of spending two hours in the evening, especially if you like movies that are not the typical mainstream Hollywood fare.

As a huge Fantasy / Sci-Fi fan, I'm not sure how this movie escaped my attention before it dropped on Amazon Prime. Russian film with a cast speaking Russian, but strangely with a couple of very good British actors in leading roles speaking English. The sets, costumes, special effects are surprisingly good and the production value seems pretty high. Although, some of the special effects at times don't make a lot of sense. This would have rated MUCH higher if not for the bad dubbing. I mean COMICALLY BAD voice acting in the dubbing, especially in the initial setup at the start of the movie. If you can make it past the midpoint, it gets a lot better. Objectively, this is a pretty good movie, with a traditional villain storyline that probably isn't going to surprise you much, but still good. But the bad dubbing almost kills it.

Forbidden Kingdom is surreal and pragmatic at the same time. Its a disorienting mix that mostly works, even though it probably should not.

There's a lot of fantastical, hellish fantasy elements in this film, that have a rather medieval feel to them. Horned demons, winged sprites and variety of other bizarre creations. This sits alongside a rather pragmatic tale of rationalism with an inexplicable, religious twist.

The acting seems reasonable but I feel a lot has been lost in translation. Its pretty clear the Russian component of this film has been dubbed. As a result I suspect is a lot of the meaning conveyed in Russian that would help to fully explain the story has been lost. As a result, for English speakers like myself, this film may have a disjointed feel to it. There is no clear segue between the scenes that make up the story and as a consequence no sense of cohesion and unity in the overall story itself.

Its worth briefly mentioning the cinematography used in this film. Its truly exceptional and really gives this film great visual depth and beauty.

All in all, for a non Russian audience this film may be a little too difficult to grasp and fully appreciate. As I said, the English translation does this film no favours. As a result its hard for me to offer an unequivocal thumbs up. That said, this is still a highly original and very creative film, reminiscent of works by Tim Burton. As such, I would suggest its still worth your time. Seven out of ten from me.