Forbidden Empire (2014)

An Exercise In Nonsense

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

This movie is a typical example of how Western Propaganda works in the preparation of events like the Ukraine crisis , which followed only about a month after the movie was released in 2014. The main villain in this movie is an orthodox priest, which is totally the opposite in the original version of Viy by Gogol where the priest is ---> (A young priest is ordered to preside over the wake of witch in a small old wooden church of a remote village. This means spending three nights alone with the corpse with only his faith to protect him - IMDb Viy 1967 story line).Ukrainians in Viy 2014 are portrayed as dirty drunkards and of course people like that can only (irony) be commanded by an orthodox maniac , who is exposed and destroyed by an "English" cartographer. He is the hero who saves the Ukrainians from the evil representative of the Orthodox church. So this movie not only shows the scheme of actions of the Anglo-Americans in Ukraine against its bigger orthodox brother Russia, but it also aims to subconsciously implant in people's brains that "We the Westerners are the good, we are the saviors."

This movie didn't reach my countries cinemas, even though it's just a country away from the old SSSR. They don't tend to show Russian films in my homeland (although 'Stalingrad' was shown during some festival), so i had to pirate a bluray release to finally see the film. First of all, i must address, mostly negative comments that I've noticed, coming from Russia and the region. One aspect of that negativity came from the notion that this movie, doesn't follow or respect Nikolay Gogol's story or the eponymous 1967 film. There is truth in this (although some motifs are repeated, like 'all women are witches' stuff, and 'scientist-philosopher' babble), story is restructured and changed, almost entirely ignoring central theme of Gogol's tale, which is fear, deathly fear. That brings me to the second aspect of negative reactions, which claims that the movie isn't scary. Not scary as 1967 film. Well, what can I say except that that's also true. This film is not a horror, and trailer gives false impression that it is.One thing that is not true though is comparison of this film with Tim Burton's 'Sleepy Hollow'. Resemblance is only superficial, this film doesn't share Tim Burton's mixture of violent horror and morbid humor, although there's plenty of humor in this film, performance of some actors is almost entirely in comedic fashion.So, what this film actually is, is a funny horror fantasy. 12+, a family horror, something like this would never be approved for production in the Hollywoods. If they even decide to distribute it there, film is probably facing cutting, like the fate of unfortunate 'Snowpiercer'.Even the 1967 film was marked with comedic performances, so I don't see what the fuss is about, as for the plot, plot is not weak, it's chaotic, especially the ending, which only adds to the overall charming film. Film doesn't resemble Hollywood productions as some claim, most noticeable is respect that this films has for all characters, there's no cannon fodder characters which is a disgusting standard in Hollywood works.As for the special effects, they vary through the film. For instance, cgi dove is visibly fake in two scenes, while the scenes of breakfast with Cossacks if fantastic. There's cgi, prosthetic, even beautiful stop motion (update: no stop-mo, it's animatronics)This is only one of three movies that I really liked this year and I watch them plenty. Other two are 'The zero theorem' and 'The anchorman 2'. Seriously, this movie is special, the fact that Jonathan's dialogs look like they're from an 17-nth century adventure story, or the overall superstition and fear of everything, or the religious tones eastern style, film feels unique.Also, you should check 1967 'Viy'. It's super.

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.

The movie is filled with symbols you can read them well if you pay close attention, also the movie is charged with morale stories. Sometimes it is required your full attention in order to extract the idea.The only drawback is that sometimes the story doesn't connect very well like the scene with the ogres, something that maybe want's to be surreal or an influence from the evil forces, a dream state that has the opposite effect on our protagonist. The movie has an original look that is one step away from the Hollywood typology. The effects look well with minor observations, the movie want's to be a horror movie but it isn't, it's a dark fantasy with religious themes. It s worth to mention that the budget was only 26 million and the results are spectacular for this amount.