The Book of Masters (2009)
A beautiful and kind girl, daughter of Baba Yaga, finds a magical stone Alatyr while walking in a field. It transforms her heart into a stone and puts her under a queer curse. She is to be the evil Countess of Stones and live in a stone tower. If the greatest gem-cutter in the world brings the stone of Alatyr to life, though, she'll become the ruler of the world. The Stone Countess, now cruel and selfish, is fascinated with the idea. She starts searching for the best gem-cutters and forces them to work with Alatyr, so the magical stone would become a living thing. Neither of the gem-cutters succeeds, so she kills them. While being imprisoned in her tower, they work on a large book about the secrets of gem-cutting. Each of them edits the book, so it's later named "the Book of Masters".
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Reviews
Overrated and overhyped
Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.
The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
Well, I didn't have big expectations from the film given it was both modern and done under Disney's flag, and expected something very westernized, but luckily I was completely wrong. The movie's actual plot isn't bad, and fits well into Russian fairy stories (The "Malachite Box" is the only book I ever seen stories about gem cutters in), the main antagonist is actually competent, which is something you don't see that often (and I liked her quips, too), and the characters do manage to be fairly sympathetic and relatable. Oh, and great visuals too,from costumes to special effects, but that's not why I'd watch a movie.But, that all goes to the side. The movie is filled with hilarious quips ,and pokes fun at oodles of fairy story cliché , from the obvious - talking horse wondering if Ivan's the dumb Ivan from another fairy story, Baba Yaga and Ivan tossing storybook lines at each other from memory, the sad, bored bohatier, GPS ball of thread; to the more covert ones, such as the head gem cutter's rhetoric being that of an old nomenclature cadre, to the Countess's terrorist-style negotiation, to Koschei having the personality of a mobster, complete with an expensive girlfriend. Oh, did I mention the magic mirror showing a monoscope? Cracked me up both times I seen it.All in all, well-worth watching.