Psycho's Movie Reviews #307: Forbidden Empire/Kingdom (2014)

Viy 3D (internationally known as Forbidden Empire, and in the UK as Forbidden Kingdom) is a 2014 fantasy film produced by Russian and Ukraine Film Group and Marins Group Entertainment and loosely based on the Nikolai Gogol story of the same name. The film was released in cinemas in Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan on 30 January 2014, in the United States on 22 May 2015 and in the United Kingdom on 1 June 2015.

The film is directed by Oleg Stepchenko, based on the first manuscript of Nikolai Gogol. The film has been in production since December 2005 and stopped several times due to lack of funding. In October 2012, the filming was completed. Viy was a huge commercial success, even breaking a record for opening weekend in Russia, but was met with mixed reviews in media.

Plot

Early-18th-century cartographer Jonathan Green undertakes a scientific voyage from Western Europe to the East. Having passed through Transylvania and crossed the Carpathian Mountains, he finds himself in a small village lost in impassable woods of Ukraine. Nothing but chance and heavy fog could bring him to this cursed place. People who live here do not resemble any other people which the traveller saw before that. The villagers, having dug a deep moat to fend themselves from the rest of the world, share a naïve belief that they could save themselves from evil, failing to understand that evil has made its nest in their souls and is waiting for an opportunity to gush out upon the world.

Production

In 2006, Russian producer Alexey Petrukhin and Russian director Oleg Stepchenko decided that they wanted to make a film based on the horror story of Viy by Nikolai Gogol. By then, two other projects based on Gogol's tale were in production, such as Taras Bulba film from 2009 and The Witch from 2006.

In order to secure the title, they needed without any further delay to release the information on the forthcoming project. In the course of three days, they filmed a teaser trailer where the role of Khoma Brutus was played by Petrukhin himself. Only after that did the active production of the film begin. When the teaser was shown in theatres, the script was not yet written and the actors were not cast. The story kept growing and changing until it turned from a simple screen version into a big-budget fantasy thriller.

The authors understood that the new times set new rules, so in 2011 they made a difficult but very important decision: they decided re-shoot the picture in 3D, even though half of the footage was already filmed. Conversion was out of the question. The decision to re-shoot was not just a PR trick. The re-shooting was taken seriously—the producers developed an innovative technology that had no parallels in the world.

Viy is an intersection of two storylines. One is the narrative from Nikolai Gogol's horror story. The writers used the first edition of the story still untouched by Belinskiy's proofs. The original version has quite different motifs and the whole narrative focuses on a different kind of drama. What's more important, this version abounds in secrets and riddles. Thus, Gogol's immortal story will be screened without cuts. The second storyline is centred on a real person—Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan (1595–1685)—a French traveller and cartographer who was the first to study the Ukrainian territories and their people and culture. His research is included in the book From Transylvania to Muscovy. The producers chose his figure because he was also the first to collect and systematize under one cover Slavic myths and legends. De Beauplan was a prototype of the film's main character—Jonathan Green.

Filming Locations

The castle in England where Green sets out on his journey is doubled in the film by the Czech Sychrov Castle. Despite being a few hundred years old—it was built in 1693—it is the newest castle in the Czech Republic. The legend goes that somewhere in the dungeons of the castle is hidden a treasure guarded by a "Black Lady", a woman dressed in a black gown of mourning. In order to make her figure even scarier, some storytellers began calling the lady of the castle "the Black Widow".

Special Effects

The film is shot in real 3D. Stereoscopic design of the film was done by the German company Stereotec.

The producer, Alexei Petrukhin, said that originally the film was supposed to be stereoscopic. The scenes that were filmed during the first shooting period (about 20 minutes) were filmed in 2D and post converted to 3D (in particular, episodes of Pannochka's funeral in the church were filmed that way). In 2011 the production decided to cooperate with Stereotec for the rest of the movie, a worldwide-operating, Munich-based 3D company. The rest of the picture (the remaining 2 hours) was shot with special 3D rigs from Stereotec and Cameras from ARRI in native 3D.

Release/Reception/Box Office

The announced release date was 12 March 2009 which was timed for the 200th anniversary of Nikolai Gogol, but it was postponed indefinitely since then. After they finished shooting the first film of the trilogy, the producers decided to postpone the premiere until the work on the second film, Viy 2 («Вий-2. Проклятое место»), is complete.

In April 2012, according to the official website of the trilogy, a new estimated release date was set as 2013. On 15 May 2013, as part of the Cannes Film Festival, RFG representatives has signed an agreement with Universal Pictures, to take part in production as a distribution company. The film finally appeared in theatres on 30 January 2014.

Reception of the film was mixed. According to Russian reviews aggregator Kritikanstvo, Viy holds an approval rating of 57%, based on 39 reviews.

Yury Gladilshchikov in The Moscow News gave a positive review, although he noted that the film lacks a target audience, since it is too intellectual for mass production and too simple for an educated audience. He also unfavourably compared it with Sleepy Hollow by Tim Burton.

Mir Fantastiki magazine was more positive about the movie and even named it the best Russian science fiction/fantasy movie of 2014.

The first weekend take was 605.2 million rubbles (some $17+ million), which was an all-time record for a Russian movie at the time. It grossed US$34 million in Russia.

Budget $18.5 million

Box office $38.9 million

My Review

This movie is probably quite unknown by most people. I certainly had never heard of it when I stumbled on it. It is a quite entertaining little fantasy / supernatural / crime movie though. I am actually not sure what to classify at as. It starts of as a fantasy movie but is it really? The cinematics of this movie is very good. For me it was the main part contributing to the enjoyment. The small world of these villagers is cinematically beautiful, dirty and gritty at the same time. The characters themselves with their enormous moustaches and weirdly cut hair are great. The special effects will perhaps not win any awards but they were good nonetheless. I especially liked the transformation scene during the meal somewhere in the middle of the movie.

As a huge Fantasy/Sci-Fi fan, I'm not sure how this movie escaped my attention before it dropped on Amazon Prime. Russian film with a cast speaking Russian, but strangely with a couple of very good British actors in leading roles speaking English. The sets, costumes, special effects are surprisingly good and the production value seems pretty high. Although, some of the special effects at times don't make a lot of sense. This would have rated MUCH higher if not for the bad dubbing. I mean COMICALLY BAD voice acting in the dubbing, especially in the initial setup at the start of the movie. If you can make it past the midpoint, it gets a lot better. Objectively, this is a pretty good movie, with a traditional villain storyline that probably isn't going to surprise you much, but still good. But the bad dubbing almost kills it. {I'm gonna try my hardest and find the original Russian dialogue}.

The story is a bit of a roller coaster ride and sometimes it felt a bit disjointed. It was not really obvious why one scene or event was followed by another at all times. But then, taking into account the later events in the movie it was perhaps meant to be a bit disjointed and "dreamy" and I have to confess that I was extremely tired when watching this movie.

The ending was a bit of a surprise. This is where the movie kind of went from a fantasy movie to more of a crime story. I have to say that I did not really see that coming until it was about to fall in my lap.

There are definitely worse ways of spending two hours in the evening, especially if you like movies that are not the typical mainstream Hollywood fare.

Thoroughly enjoyable bit of weirdness. The movie looks great and there is some great comedic timing from a lot of the characters here too. The juxtaposition of peasant superstition and aristocratic "there's an explanation for everything" is a great mix. For most of the movie, what is supposed to be real or an illusion from the story's point of view is in question. This reminds me of parts of Pan's Labyrinth, Naked Lunch, Van Helsing, among others. It does have some flaws in the logic and the pacing at times, and it can be a little confusing separating the characters from their grime to make sense of the story. This is one of those movies that's got a lot of art house in it so it's not going to appeal to everyone, but if you like a unique mix of camp, fx, and writing that leaves some questions unanswered you'll enjoy it. I highly recommend this one. I would go see a sequel in a heartbeat. 8/10