Inside the tremendous Soviet masterpiece MST3K got wrong
If movie fans recognize the title The Sword and the Dragon at all, they most likely associate it with the 1994 episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 where the crew hilariously riff on a tattered, blotched, badly dubbed print of the Soviet film. At first glance, this episode is an entertaining dissection of the many technical issues and poorly orchestrated production values of a classically ambitious failure. But as some MST3K fans have discovered, the film in its original form is a magnificent artistic achievement. In a new 4K Russian-language restoration, Aleksandr Ptushko’s 1956 epic — originally titled Ilya Muromets in its native Russian — gets the stunning polish it deserves. It’s a movie of grand imagination and epic sweep, with some of the most stunning visuals ever seen in a film of its time.
Ilya Muromets is an epic fantasy based on the legend of its mythical namesake, a knight who fights for the Kievan Rus kingdom (modern-day Ukraine, plus Northeastern Russia) against the tsar Kalin and his Golden Horde. The story goes that Muromets’ son is captured as a baby by one of Kalin’s soldiers and brought up as a warrior for the Horde. When Kievan Rus fights against the tsar for independence, Muromets is tasked with battling his own son to defend his country.
Ptushko’s film beautifully renders the legend’s valiant battles and conflicts. Incredible settings with lush colors and Elysian set designs make each scene look like it could be a framed painting in the Louvre. All these virtues seem hard to believe for those introduced to the movie through MST3K. But in spite of its notoriety, Ilya Muromets deserves to be seen and respected as a massive artistic achievement.
B-movie king Roger Corman became a key figure in
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