Ilya Muromets<\/strong> [aka The Sword and the Dragon] (Soviet Union-1956; dir. Aleksandr Ptushko)<\/p>\n Based on an ancient legend, this Russian film includes a wealth of fantasy elements, simply going on the images I’ve been able to track down. Not the least of them — and the one that sparked my interest in the film — is the one below, a classic moment straight out of what is probably the first major dragon-slaying film, Fritz Lang’s Die Nibelungen: Siegfried <\/strong>(1924).<\/p>\n Synopsis<\/strong>:<\/p>\n Ilya Muromets is a heroic warrior who succeeded in protecting the Russian land from evil enemies, defeating their thousands-strong army. He saved Russia from various monsters, such as Nightingale the Robber and Gorynych the Serpent. This was the first Soviet wide-screen motion picture. Participating in the shooting were 106, 000 soldiers-extras and 11, 000 horses \u2013 the record numbers in the history of world cinema (as documented in Patrick Robertson\u2019s \u201cThe New Guinness Book of Movie Records\u201d, published in 1993). (from Ruscico website<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Ilya Muromets<\/strong> was released in Japan during the Showa Period — on 10 March 1959 (according to the IMDb), about five years after the iconic giant monster film Gojira<\/em> (aka Godzilla<\/em>) made its box-office mark — and (apparently) by Toho, the production company that singlehanded invented the daikaiju eiga<\/em> genre. Notice the logographic lettering in the lower left-hand side of the card (the picture of the dragon) above. We discovered this image on a Japanese blog<\/a>, and the author of the article clearly considers that the film was released as part of the Showa-period development of the daikaiju eiga<\/em> genre. It is certainly possible to see a potential influence on Godzilla’s greatest enemy, the three-headed Ghidrah [later King Ghidorah], who first appeared in the 1964 film San daikaij\u00fb: Chiky\u00fb saidai no kessen<\/em> [aka Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster]. The author refers to the dragon (which is three-headed: see poster below) as the “incarnation of capitalism” — interpreted as such by the Soviet regime —\u00a0 and points out similarities with the Japanese “legend of the eight dragons”.<\/p>\n In its original undubbed, widescreen aspect (rather than the dubbed, pan-and-scanned and cut US version available online), Ilya Muromets <\/strong>looks as though it is a spectacular and inventive fantasy epic.<\/p>\n Ruscico<\/a>, the Russian Cinema Council [see review<\/a>], has released the film in its original aspect ratio and with subtitles.<\/p>\n More images<\/strong>:<\/p>\n![\"4362602\"](\"http:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/4362602.jpg\" "\\"4362602\\"")
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