To Kill a Dragon (1988)

That was an excellent one.

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

"Ubit' drakona" is the last (up to date) movie made by Zakharov, blending modern realities and fairy-tale motives into a thought-provoking cinematic masterpiece. Unfortunately, most of Zakharov's movies are not easy to understand by those without the ex-USSR background. "Ubit' drakona", rooted in universal motives and using imagery familiar to the Western public, seems to be an exception. The nuances and the gentle humour of the late Soviet actors will probably be somewhat lost to the Western viewer, but much will be still understood.The movie delves deep into the psychology of the tyranny and oppression, and into the psychology of the oppressed. "I started to envy the slaves.", says Lancelot, "They know everything in advance. They have solid convictions; maybe, because they have no choice?" This message about the burden of freedom is especially powerful. Everything is simple in the first part - a cruel tyrant, people who are afraid of him, trying to steer clear of trouble. The second part, however, is more important. It shows that the dragon inside one's mind might be more powerful than the physical dragon. The ending is simply magical.It takes the visionary genius of Schwartz, who wrote the original play at the same time when Orwell wrote "1984", and the expressive genius of Zakharov, to predict the process that so many people went through decades later, and will keep going through as becoming free people is not the same as getting rid of a tyrant. (Lars von Trier's "Manderlay" comes to mind.) I wish Hollywood adapted this. The result probably won't live up to the original, but this message must be heard.

I was expecting an average "rebellious" Soviet movie that shrouds its critique of communism in a critique of fascism. In truth, Zakharov, adapting a play by the legendary playwright Shvarts, takes the "critique" aboutthree or four layers deeper. This movie is a timeless examination of tyranny in all forms, and what effect this tyranny has on those who, willingly or unwillingly, submit to it. Ultimately, there is no clear answer nor a clean solution to any of this, even when the "dragon" is beheaded. The movie makes some great punches at our beloved soviet leaders while also examining, at great depth, a timeless and always pertinent issue. Highly recommended, hopefully an English (or any other language) subtitled version is out there for the uninitiated.

A brilliant movie, like most of Russian's movies. Based on the play "Kill the Dragon", by Evgeni Schwartz, it is mostly like theater, with strong accent on the characters, the plot, the acting.Director has not waisted his time and talent on special effects and such a marginal things. "Ubit drakona" is a beautiful story about freedom, and human disability to live freely; about beauty, nobility, and loneliness of beautiful and noble creatures in the world. It is done in the best manner of Russian literature, with strong influence of novels of Dostoevski, with plenty of dialogs freedom, love, violence, but, also, with brilliantly done scenes of duels, balls, and dialogs in the classical manner of Shakespeare.

And It's a shame nobody actually knows this miracle exists. "Killing the Dragon" is the only film Zakharov, a genious theatre director, made for the big screen after quite a few TV masterpieces. He talks about freedom and human nature using fairy tale motives. His voice is pure, rough, powerfull and totally amazing. I cry every time this film comes to its amazing ending. SO GREAT!!!