Forbidden Empire
Early 18th century. Cartographer Jonathan Green undertakes a scientific voyage from Europe to the East. Having passed through Transylvania and crossed the Carpathian Mountains, he finds himself in a small village lost in impassible woods. 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 traveler saw before that. The villagers, having dug a deep moat to fend themselves from the rest of the world, share a naive 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.
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- Cast：
- Jason Flemyng , Aleksey Chadov , Agniya Ditkovskite , Yuriy Tsurilo , Olga Zaytseva , Aleksandr Yakovlev , Igor Jijikine
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Reviews
disgusting, overrated, pointless
A Masterpiece!
I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.
It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
Just a blurt of ideas and images with no background whatsoever with reality! And to pay so much money for this garbage! Do something better with your life! Don't eat other people's s~~~t!
"Viy", a.k.a. "Forbidden Empire" is a fantasy film with a confused story about a British cartographer that flees from England (actually from his future father-in-law) expecting to raise a fortune in the East to marry his beloved girlfriend but finding a cursed place. The film has wonderful special effects but is hard to be followed since the pretentious screenplay is not well-written and is totally disconnected with many plot points. The 1967 film is a Russian classic horror movie and a little gem. However this unnecessary remake is a complete mess and difficult to understand which the target audience is. My vote is three.Title (Brazil): "A Lenda" ("The Legend")
I liked the movie. When I was going to see it I had already known that it was not a screen version of Nikolai Gogol's story but "a movie based on it". That's why I was not disappointed as some people who went to the theatre to see just a new version of 1967 "Viy". Because it is not.This new "Viy" took the same legend from the book (based on a Slavic folklore legend), the same characters, the same location - a small Ukrainian out-of-the-way village, added some new characters , CGI (quite good), shuffled everything, sprinkled it with humour (sometimes dark)and eminently suitable music. And as a result, we have an interesting mystic story definitely worth watching.
Of course, this film is _based_ on a Gogol's story, not a direct screen version. And this is most interesting, because it creates an intrigue.If one had read Gogol or had seen the film of 1967, he/she could expect to see something like that, just with 3D effects. These expectations disappear immediately, leaving the spectator face to face with an enigma.As the director of this film said in an interview, they used an early edition of Gogol's text. The screenwriter continues from the very point where Gogol has put the last period.On my mind, the story of Viy 3D resembles Umberto Eco's "The Name of The Rose", but with cossack's specifics.It is dark - but not black. It is mystic - but not fantastic. (A bit of fantastic, of course). It is hard to predict if there would be happy end or not - many times. But this is not typical noir or horror.Who or what is the "boss enemy"? Where the root of the evil hides - in the spirit of savage forests, in black souls of bad guys, or just in alcoholic delirium? What will triumph - an European rationality or Russian mystic? And many, many more questions.And finally I must conclude: the film is positive. This is a perfect tale.P.S. The priest, father Paisiy, is similar to Vsevolod Chaplin, the chief of public relations of the Russian Orthodox Church. It was quite funny to see his face in this context.
