Ilya Muromets

MOVIE #2,225 • SCORE 8/10 • 12.18.24
SERIES: MY KAIJU DECADE

I'm not doing podcast no more or maybe I will when the zeitgeist feels right. This is was such a welcome change from the recent kaiju faire (this is not a kaiju but you know that) of the American B-Movie Mid-50s: a big, epic, expensive-looking Soviet fantasy film featuring 1,000s of extras and a little bunny playing bongos...

There is a (bad-ass) giant knight riding a giant horse in the very cool opening scene and I thought maybe that's why this wound up on the "kaiju" list —


— but it was really because of this three-headed fire-breathing dragon at the end which the bad guys had the entire time but waited until there were only seven minutes left in the movie to deploy...



But I guess Ilya and his crew chop its heads off pretty fast so maybe this was more of a 'last resort' dragon.

Really solid film despite some middle drag, which you'd expect: so much smoke, fire, practical effects and A+ lighting, which is rare in a picture that also has such a wide scope. And look at this little freak...


A real 'blow hard' am-i-right???

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Ilya Muromets (Russian: Илья Муромец), also known as The Sword and the Dragon (US) and The Epic Hero and the Beast (UK), is a 1956 Soviet fantasy film by noted fantasy director Aleksandr Ptushko and produced at Mosfilm. It is based on the old Russian oral epic poems about the knight Ilya Muromets. It was released on September 16, 1956.