Ten artists worked on the film for four years, each specializing in animating a different type of scene. The completed film features 600 backgrounds and 30,000 painstakingly hand-painted animation cels.
Based on 19th century poet János Arany's trilogy of epic poems: Toldi (1846), Toldi's Night (1848) and Toldi's Love (1879). The trilogy centered around Miklós Toldi, a folklore hero inspired by a 14th century nobleman of the same name. The real-life Toldi was a high raking count and mercenary who lead campaigns from Hungary to Italy. In the following centuries, folk stories exaggerated Toldi's inhuman strength and his achievements as a knight, which then served as the basis for Arany's poems. The film combines all three poems into one narrative. The title "Daliás idök" was actually Arany's preliminary work title for the third story, which chronicled the middle portion of Toldi's life.
Originally, the film would have had no voice acting, with the entire story being told through the animation and the accompanying musical score. Due to executive pressure, the creators had to add narration over the entire film, which many people felt unnecessary and not living up to the standard of the poetry of the original Toldi books. On international festivals, the movie was shown without narration.
None of the characters are named in the story, not even the main character Miklós Toldi or his brother György. Miklós Toldi's name is only mentioned in the quote that serves as the film's introduction.
The movie was a big financial and critical failure due to its avant-garde presentation style, unusual animation method and dark tone. This took a toll on Pannonia Film Studio's creative output.