Category Archives: fantasy

“Ilya Muromets (The Sword & The Dragon)” (1956) on 4K Restoration Blu-ray

drama, fantasy, foreign films, ,

“Ilya Muromets (The Sword & The Dragon)” (1956) on 4K restoration Blu-ray uncut for the first time in the United States.

Aleksandr Ptushko’s visually stunning FX-filled epic has hit the streets and is now available for your theater library.

Deaf Crocodile Films, in association with distribution partner Seagull Films, released the 4K restoration on Blu-ray of famed fantasy filmmaker Aleksandr Ptushko.

Produced in 1956, this Russian film with English subtitles is visually stunning. The medieval epic was initially released and heavily edited with the title The Sword & the Dragon.

Now, Ilya Muromets (The Sword & The Dragon) through partner label OCN-Vinegar Syndrome. The Blu-ray edition of Ilya Muromets is fully restored to its original Russian release. The package also contains a new commentary track by comics artist (Swamp Thing), film historian and author Stephen R. Bissette and a reprint of film scholar Alan Upchurch’s pioneering essay on Aleksandr Ptushko from Video Watchdog magazine, plus Ptushko’s own essay on the making of Ilya Muromets. 

Mosfilm studio recently restored Ilya Muromets in 4K using the original 35mm camera negative. Ptushko’s movie became available for digital streaming after its Blu-ray release through Deaf Crocodile’s partner label, Grasshopper Films.

Ilya Muromets runs 87 minutes, which keeps the drama moving without unnecessarily long pans and dramatic moments. The legendary fantasy filmmaker Aleksandr Ptushko’s sweeping, visual FX-filled epic is impressive as a 1956 production. 

“On one level, Ilya Muromets is a pure fantasy, one of Ptushko’s greatest — but even a fantasy can have political implications,” says Dennis Bartok, Deaf Crocodile’s Co-Founder and Head of Distribution & Acquisitions. “Although Ilya Muromets was made in 1956 at the height of the Cold War and was set in a mythical landscape nearly a thousand years earlier, it has unmistakable parallels to today’s world and the war in Ukraine. Ilya was a legendary Kyivan Rus hero, encompassing modern Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus in the 9th to 13th centuries. That idea of somehow returning to a mythical “united Rus'” has been used as a tragic justification for the war today — and of course, when Ilya Muromets was made in 1956, it would have been seen as a call for a united Soviet Union at the time.”

“Imagine being given an unlimited budget and no time constraints to make the ultimate fantasy epic in 1956… that’s Ilya Muromets”, added Deaf Crocodile Co-Founder and Head of Post-Production & Restoration Craig Rogers. “With over 100,000 extras, over 10,000 horses, and a three-headed dragon that breathes real fire!”

Though I have seen none of Ptushko’s production before, some film fans believe this is one of his most enchanting achievements. The movie has stunning Cinemascope as a ballad of heroic medieval knights with ruthless Tugar invaders.

The special effects include wind demons and three-headed fire-breathing dragons, which are remarkable for 1956. The film stars Boris Andreyev as the bogatyr, Russian for a warrior, Ilya, a mythic figure in the Kyivan Rus’ culture that pre-dated modern Ukraine and Russia. Kyivan Rus’ was a shapeless federation in Eastern Europe and Northern Europe from 880 to the beginning of the 13th century. Much of the film’s action is set in Kyiv, and Ilya’s relics are held today in the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery. 

Based on a series of famous byliny, Russian for oral epics, the film follows Ilya as he wages a decades-long battle against the Tugars. The Tugars threaten his homeland, kidnap his wife and raise his son to fight against him. The movie is worth watching because of its dynamic acting, brilliant costumes, cinematography and vast panorama shots. 

Ptushko began his career in the 1930s and became a combination of Walt Disney, Ray Harryhausen, who pioneered stop-motion animated effects, and Mario Bava, an Italian filmmaker known for his horror movies. Ptushko stands among the best for his dazzling, bejeweled fantasies, including The Stone Flower, Sadko, Sampo and Ruslan & Ludmila. 

They released the first Cinemascope film produced in the Soviet Union, Ilya Muromets, in a truncated, dubbed version in the U.S. at the height of the Cold War as The Sword & The Dragon, downplaying the epic poetry and lyricism of the original. 

Thanks to the progression of technology, Deaf Crocodile and Seagull Films, this epic movie arrives fully restored in 4K for its first-ever official U.S. release on Blu-ray in its original Russian with English subtitles. 

“Corridor of Mirrors” Compromises Past Life Obsession

fantasy, horror, romance, suspense, thriller

Directed by Terence Young, Corridor of Mirrors is a 1948 film based on a book by Chris Massie. It appears Massie may be best known for his novel “Pity My Simplicity,” which was also adapted into a 1945 movie, Love Letters, starring Jennifer Jones.

Corridor of Mirrors is Young’s directorial debut. He’s best known for kicking off the James Bond franchise by directing the first two Bond movies, Dr. No and From Russia with Love. His last Bond movie was Thunderball. Additionally, he directed Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin and Richard Crenna in Wait Until Dark.

Edana Romney and Rudolph Cartier adapted Massie’s book for the screen. The script was a vehicle to showcase Romney’s talent and launch her career, which never took off, though she spent her later years writing a screenplay about the life of Richard Burton.

On the other hand, Eric Portman as Paul Mangin is impressive. His movie credits include A Canterbury Tales, The Golden Mask and The Bedford Incident. If you’re a Prisoner fan, he played Number Two.

With Young’s gothic horror, romantic melodrama and film noir, the movie held my attention despite the weak storyline. In fact, the remastered quality of the Cohen Film Collection’s Blu-ray makes the cinematic images fascinating. Watching Young’s camera work with low then high angles that include the striking contrast of the cinematography of Andre Thomas was a marvel.

The story follows Mangin as a contemporary artist obsessed with the Renaissance lifestyle and art. He wears clothes from the era and rides around in a hansom cab. He meets the stunning Mifanwy, and they become lovers. Even though she is married, Mangin becomes possessed with the idea that the two of them are past life lovers from the Renaissance. In their past life, they were married, but the relationship ended tragically. Mifanwy is mesmerized into thinking his fantasy is accurate, and she goes behind the corridor of mirrors in his mansion, where the fantasy begins. She dresses up in Renaissance gowns made by Mangin.

The fundamental problem with this movie is visualizing spiritual connections because such an occurrence is invisible to the naked eye. Though Young uses mirrors, angles and melodrama to help, it’s a challenging subject to film. Kenneth Branagh mastered it in his 1991 Dead Again with a clever twist at the end. As a matter of fact, Albert Lewin tried an earlier film in 1950 with Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, which bettered Corridor of Mirrors.

The movie is worth seeing for those who’d like to see a suspense thriller that borderlines horror. Note that this movie is Christopher Lee’s film debut, playing Charles.

Thank you, Blu-ray Down Low, IMDB and Theater Byte, Good Reads, for providing information.

Mystery Sci-Fi, Thriller “The Fare” Ignites With Romance

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The Fare, movie poster

Harris, played by Gino Anthony Pesi, is fatigued without peace with the world. He makes a living as a taxi driver. His next fare, Penny, played by Brinna Kelly, intangles themselves trapped in a neverending ride that loops and loops, eventually changing their lives eternally.

Written by the lead actress, Kelly, and directed by D.C. Hamilton, when Harris picks up a lovely woman named Penny as his next fare, he finds himself captivated. Notably, right up until she disappears from the back seat without an imprint. As he frantically tries to come to terms with what happened, he resets his meter and is promptly back to the time she first climbed into his cab. He and Penny find themselves entangled in an endlessly circling ride that transforms their lives eternally.

The Fare, mystery woman

The Fare screened internationally, taking many awards, such as the Director’s Prize for Overall Concept and Execution at FilmQuest, the Special Mention Jury Award at Fantasporto, and Best Dark Fantasy/Supernatural Film at the Miami International Science Fiction Film Festival.

Overall the story is intriguing with believable acting and unpredictable. I expectations of what I thought would happen didn’t. I could not figure out what was the cause of the looping. The movie is romantic and worth seeing as an indie film.   It reminds me of a Hitchock film or an episode from The Twilight Zone. 

“Aniara” Swedish Sci-Fi Thriller

drama, fantasy, foreign films, review
The movie is based on an epic science-fiction poem.

Written and directed by Pella Kagerman and Hugo Lilja, Aniara is their first feature film. Based on an epic 1956 science fiction poem by Harry Martinson, Kagerman shared the poem with his grandmother while she was in a hospital recovering from a stroke. “Growing up, I was very close to my grandmother. She was extremely playful and interested in literature. We often role-played books we had read, even when I got older,” explains Kagerman. “Together we went to see a theater play of Aniara. The following night she got a stroke. I started to read the book aloud to her at the hospital. As she was getting better, we started to role-play it and pretend that the big hospital was the space ship Aniara. Every doctor and patient its passengers. That’s when the story truly hit me and us, on a very deep level.”

Aniara is the space ship forced off the flight path from Earth to Mars.

Kagerman and Lilja worked with each other for over ten years now. “And since the beginning of our collaboration, we’ve been highly influenced by each other and stolen each other’s interests,” jests Lilja.  

The movie is beautiful but heart-wrenching and not a story for the faint of heart because it is sensitively intense. The imagery and story haunt you after the end of the movie because it is intelligent. The movie is not uplifting but more of sociological look at, according to Martinson, where the Earth populace is headed.

The movie introduces one of the many spaceships used for transporting Earth’s fleeing population to their new home-planet Mars. The destruction of Earth occurs, and before the crew and passengers become accustomed to being in space, she collides with space junk and thrown off course. The passengers slowly realize that they’ll never be able to return.

Mimaroben played by Emelie Jonsson.

Mimaroben, played by Emelie Jonsson in her first feature film leading role, runs a room where a sentient computer allows humans to experience near-spiritual memories of the Earth.

As the ship drifts further into the endless void more and more passengers require Mimaroben’s services and stress of the job builds on her as she is the only one who can keep the growing insanity and lethal depression at bay.

In Aniara’s inexorable journey towards destruction, there is a warning that cannot be emphasized enough. There’s only one Earth. It’s time to take responsibility for our actions.

The movie is in Swedish with English subtitles, so finding Aniara in English is not offered. The directors felt the necessity to bring the story to the silver screen. “The apocalypse has already started, hasn’t it? There’s a risk that Aniara might become our future, and the questions the film deals with are extremely relevant today,” adds Kagerman.

Mimaroben has a relationship with another woman.

Though Martinson’s poem is ambiguous on whether the main character is a man or a woman, Kagerman and Lilja felt it essential to focus on a woman while the overall movie centers on females. “It’s not 100% clear what gender the main character has in the book, although it’s probably a man,” explains Lilja. “But we love our female lead and always had her in mind. In the film, she has a relationship with another woman and her best friend, the astronomer, is a woman.”

The movie’s special effects are low-key without extensive CGI or expensive science-fiction sets. Filming occurred on location in shopping malls and Scandinavian Ferries with set design by Linnea Petterson and Maja-Stina Asberg. The directors wanted to create a here and now feeling. “We wanted the ship to feel familiar. If we were to emigrate in large scale to Mars today, we’re pretty sure that the ships will contain both shopping malls, bowling, and spas. But especially shopping malls,” explains Kagerman.  

It took the two directors four years to complete the movie with most the time spent in post-production with reshoots to add to the storyline. They shot inserts in their living room and at the farm where Sophie Winqvist Loggins, cinematographer, lives in the south of Sweden.

Aniara won several awards on the film festival circuit including Les Arcs European Film Festival Best Actress for Emelie Jonsson and honorable mention for Kagerman and Lilja. T

Aniara is streaming on Amazon and the usual on-demand platforms available in your region.

Martinson message in his poem is serious as a warning to the people of Earth. The directors want the audience to reflect on the spacecraft they’re already onboard, called Earth and the extremely short period we have on it. “It might sound depressing, but it’s actually the opposite. We are here today. There is still some time,” adds Kagerman and Lilja.

Higher Power is a Trippy Sci-Fi Journey

4K Ultra HD, fantasy, science fiction, thriller, ,

Directed by VFX artist Matthew Santoro, Higher Power is a visually rich sci-fi thriller. The movie stars Ron Eldard and Colm Feore.

Santoro makes his directorial debut with the story of Joseph Steadman, played by Eldard. Steadman suddenly finds himself under the command of a mad scientist, played by Colm Feore.  The mad scientist is on a mission that will alter the fate of his family and the world.

Because of the scientist, Steadman becomes equipped with new superpowers. But, he remains under the thumb of the seemingly omniscient scientist, and Steadman does all he can to protect his daughters from the man who bargains with their lives. The scientist’s warped mind overshadows his mysterious quest meant to save all of humanity. When the Universe decides what it wants, it’s pointless to resist. With his family’s life at stake, Joseph Steadman finds himself the unwilling test subject of a maniacal scientist in a battle that could save the world or destroy it.

Santoro uses his professional background in crafting an impressive movie filled with special effects. He directs a stunning a world of supernatural abilities and consequences. Santoro immerses you in the movie like a trippy journey. Spending most of the time going through the experiences of the main character, Steadman, as his life is engineered and disfigured to turn him into something stronger. I wasn’t sure what to expect watching this movie. It’s quite different from other movies that are similar in character. Higher Power is a refreshing concept with a trippy story.

The acting is decent and the story starts off slow. But, hang in there because as the story unfolds the movie becomes a rocket ride in which a reluctant man must overcome his past in order to find his higher power. The ending makes watching the movie worth it.

The movie clips show a good deal of what the movie emulates.  The special effects are awesome but basic. Only someone like Santoro can pull it off.

High-Rise

book, drama, fantasy, indie, suspense, thriller, , , , , ,

high-riseHigh-Rise, from genre-bending director Ben Wheatley, is an attempt to adapt the classic J.G. Ballard novel of the same name with a brilliant and talented cast including Tom Hiddleston, Oscar winner Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans and Golden Globe winner Elisabeth Moss. If you watch the movie knowing it is dark satire, then you might not have a problem watching this movie. It is boring at times because the pacing is off, but the acting is what saves the movie.

But the message is clear and just as poignant today as it follows the inevitable result of a breakdown of social strata and public decorum, known as class warfare. The classic book is a dystopia with a very strong message, but the movie doesn’t even come near to the heart of the book.

Dr. Robert Laing, played pretty solid by Hiddleston, recently moved into a luxury, high-rise apartment building designed by the enigmatic Mr. Royal, played by Irons. With a literal divide of the classes, the wealthiest residents live on the upper floors with the best amenities while residents on the lower floors experience routine blackouts and other disruptions of basic services. As additional flaws in the building begin to emerge, both physically and socially, the lower floor residents revolt, turning the building into a battlefield for an all-out class warfare.

I wanted the movie to be good and worth seeing because the Ballard’s book tells a great story and the actors are really good. Yet, the script and editing could be tighter. It just dragged on and on with no reason.

The Blu-ray comes with some bonus features that includes a commentary from Tom Hiddleston, Ben Wheatley and Producer Jeremy Thomas, an in-depth look at adapting the beloved novel from the page to the screen, a look at the acclaimed film’s 70s set design, special effects, and more.

The Last Witch Hunter

action, fantasy, horror, science fiction, thriller, , ,

the last witch huntVin Diesel movies make money and entertain in a simple but direct way. The Last Witch Hunter is a little different and not such a simple movie. Directed decently by USC alumni Breck Eisner, the movie is both large-scale and commendable. Eisner crafts a distinct urban fantasy-horror universe, which looks different from other movies of the same genre.

The story begins in the past with a group of silver-haired warriors on an important journey to slay the evil Witch Queen, played by Julie Engelbrecht, responsible for placing a curse on the whole countryside. The warriors fight bravely with suspense and terror as if they are fighting a monster, not a witch. All in all, this part of the movie is very good.

The story moves forward to the present. We meet Kaulder, played by Diesel, who is an immortal hero with a very complex or angst personality. If you are familiar with Diesel’s characters, you know he is still sarcastic and badass as ever, making his dedicated fans over-the-top, hand-slapping happy.  He teams up with Axe and Cross, a group of priests. Dolan, played brilliantly by Michael Caine, works closely with Kaulder but retires and unexpectedly dies. Kaulder suspects his death is caused by “dark magic beyond evil,” meaning the Witch Queen.

Eisner adds a lot of action scenes with some awesome scary scenes, a strong supporting cast, and plenty of really useful computer effects with vibrant monsters and crazy spells. However, the story has no surprises, only clichés, yet it’s a Diesel movie, so no complaints either.

Elijah Wood is excellent as Kaulder’s sidekick, a geeky priest in New York City. He adds a lot to the story and production. I like seeing him with Diesel because they are so different in real life.

All in all, it is a pretty good movie and worth seeing if you are a Diesel fan.