JTMokko

Willow is a fantasy film that tells the traditional story of the battle between good and evil. Queen Bavmorda has learned of a prophecy that her reign will end when a baby with a certain birthmark is born. The evil queen captures the pregnant mothers and finds the predicted baby. However, the baby's midwife smuggles the newborn out of the queen's castle. Their escape is cut short when the hounds find them and kill the midwife. However, the midwife manages to place the baby, Elora Dana, on a small raft to be carried away by the current. The current carries Elora Dana to the outskirts of the village of Nelwyn (dwarves), where Willow Ufgood's family finds the baby. Willow is tasked with returning the baby to the humans (daikini), and this begins an adventure, along which she is aided by the chaotic good swordsman, Madmardigan (Val Kilmer). Willow is played by Warwick Davis, who played Wicket the Ewok in the Star Wars films, Leprechaun the goblin in the horror films, and Professor Filius Flitwick in the Harry Potter films. The role of Sorsha, the daughter of the Evil Queen, is played by Joanne Whalley, who later married Val Kilmer, whom she met in the film.

Willow was one of the most significant fantasy films before the Lord of the Rings film series. The film has also been significant to me personally since I first saw it on VHS sometime in the late 80s. I haven't seen the film in about twenty years, and now that I saw it again, my image of the film has changed.

The film represents high fantasy, whose world is imaginary and where magic and monsters are commonplace. Exaggerating these elements can easily make a film childish and silly. I think that's exactly what happened with Willow. Magic was presented exclusively in the form of "simzalabin"-style wand-waving, which many Harry Potter fans will undoubtedly like, but I didn't get into it myself. In the film, magic was more about shooting lightning from a wand or transforming into animals - in other words, not much imagination was used in the manifestation of magic. The monsters were also either very traditional or otherwise poorly executed. The film's makeup and practical monster effects could have been of a higher class if the makers had had more skill and imagination. Before the year the film was made, 1988, incredible effects could already be done - for example, the work of effects master Rob Bottin in the films The Thing (1982) and Legend (1985), whose special effects are still top of the field.

Of the supporting characters, a group of little people called brownies was an unnecessary and silly addition to the story. The pair Rool (Kevin Pollak) and Franjean (Rick Overton) ran after the main characters and said something meant for comedy. It seemed miraculous that very small - about 10 cm tall human beings survived in the midst of all the rushing and fighting. They had no other job than to be the comic relief in the film.

The best thing about the film, however, even after all these years, is the music. Composer James Horner drew influences from - or some might even say plagiarized - traditional folk music and classical music. In my opinion, the best song is the "Elora Dana Theme" at the beginning of the film, which is based on the traditional Thracian folk song "Mir Stanke Le". Special mention goes to Japanese flutist Kazu Matsui, who masterfully plays the theme melody on the shakuhachi bamboo flute. Robert Schumann's Symphony No. 3 has also been a strong influence on Horner's Willow music. It's interesting how much music influences the movie experience. Often, no attention is paid to film music, but it still has a strong effect on creating an atmosphere. When I think back to the movie Willow, the first thing that comes to mind is always the film's theme song.

In addition to the music, the heart of the movie Willow is the sympathetic Warwick Davis in the lead role, who succeeds excellently in his first lead role and is a refreshingly different main character in an otherwise traditional story. A similar small-sized main character was only seen with the Lord of the Rings film adaptations. About ten years ago, I watched the reality series Life's Too Short, which followed the life of Warwick Davis, in which he said that he earns extra income by selling his autographs online on thesignatureshop co uk. I assumed that the site was invented just for the series and that nothing was actually sold there. I went to the site and found that Davis really sells his autographs on the site. I'm attaching a picture of the Willow movie promotional photo I ordered, with Davis's signature and dedication.

The story begins in mid eval Japan, where two have been tasked with love, a warrior who the emperor. They are waiting for their opponent at the gate of a temple. The gate opens and the they were waiting for appears, with whom the two begin a fight. The story moves to the present day, to a film studio where a television series is being filmed. Is a historical that focuses specifically on the.

Era of the in Japan. One of the named travels in time from the era to the present day.

Through various coincidences, ends up as an actor in a television series, where he proves to be unusually authentic precisely because of his background.

Wolfman is a refreshing new interpretation of the old werewolf story. It brings a slightly new perspective and a different backstory to what we have been used to in previous versions. In the film, turning into a werewolf is more of a contagious disease than a curse of supernatural origin. A refreshing new perspective was how the viewer was presented with how a werewolf sees the world and the dark forest at night - the light is emphasized and the colors are really strongly contrasting. These situations created a really good-looking picture.

The only thing I wasn't so excited about was the appearance of the monsters and the actors' interpretation of the monsters. In the initial stage of the transformation, the werewolf disease is paralyzing and resembles death, but later, when the transformation is complete, the sufferer is supposed to gain new powers and be even more powerful. However, in the Wolfman film, the makeup and the actor's interpretation of the character's condition suggested that the werewolf was still equipped with limited functional capabilities. The jaws and teeth in particular looked like an Appalachian banjo player.

I would give the beginning of the film four stars out of five, but the middle gets three and the end two stars.