Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Interesteg What makes it different from others?

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Leofwine_draca A fantastic-looking Russian fantasy epic which, despite a poor, washed-out print, still manages to convince in its portrayal of a LORD OF THE RINGS-type world packed with monsters, beautiful landscapes, and warring armies. A solemn-sounding narrator tells us the fairytale story as the film progresses and, even with only an eighty-minute running time, it still manages to pack in half a dozen plot twists and plenty of action.Boris Andreyev makes for a different type of hero as Ilja. Normally the heroes are fresh-faced and muscular in these fantasy films; however, he's a bearded Santa Claus lookalike who would appear to be grandfatherly rather than a young and brave fighter! I guess they have a different idea of these things in Russia. Still, with Ilja chucking rocks and tree stumps around at his farm, he would at least make a fair adversary for the likes of Steve Reeves or Kirk Morris. The rest of the cast all look much the same and don't really register with the exception of the Mongol Chieftain who seems to be an foreign equivalent of Vincent Price.Scenes of thousands of warriors marching through countryside are well done and give the film its tagline "A cast of 106,000!". The special effects of the wind demon and the obese merchant are well done, but the dragon (which doesn't actually appear until five minutes before the end) is an unconvincing puppet which at least spits fire fairly regularly. However, the threat is destroyed after the fighters simply chuck buckets of water over their heads and walk up and cut off its heads! Not exactly a powerful adversary after all and one that would be more effective from a distance, I think.Still, the film provides plenty of unintentional laughs, not least of these the dragon. A scene where Ilja walks up after a battle and we see his shield studded with a dozen arrows is pretty funny too. There are some surprisingly violent and cruel scenes involving Mongols being repeatedly skewered by spears and lifted into the air, and three being impaled on one spear at once - not what you would expect to see in a children's epic! Thankfully the film has an imagination which still manages to impress us, like the scene where the chieftain walks up a mountain of soldiers on his horse in able to see more clearly! THE SWORD AND THE DRAGON is a highly entertaining film and should be seen by any genre fan as a genuine attempt at an epic by a foreign country that at least partially works, and what it lacks in professionalism it more than makes up for in spirit.

Aaron1375 This film looks like it had very impressive production values. Huge sets, a rather decent looking monster and other things one associates with a big time budget. What it lacks is a coherent story, however, this may be more due to the fact this is a heavily edited American cut of the film, cut even more so by the fact I saw it on MST3K. What I saw warrants a score of three, mainly due to the fact it seemed to randomly jump from scene to scene. If I ever see a print of the film as it was meant to be seen I will gladly score and review it again, but now I have to review the film as I saw it. Unfortunately, what I saw in terms of story was a convoluted mess.The story is the main problem, but I will attempt to explain the main gist of it as I saw it. A man is crippled, unable to move, an evil warlord type is plundering the land and a strange hero who may as well not been in the film at all dies and wishes for these men to pass his sword to another. Well, these men find the poor man who is crippled and witnessed his village pillaged and his wife taken by the horde and they make him better and give him the sword that he does not use very often at all during the film. He goes to the prince of the kingdom's palace (why not a king?) and brings him this creature that blows wind. At a point he is reunited with his wife, only to promptly leave her side again and she is again captured, for some strange reason the prince locks up the hero and during this time the wife has their son a big battle occurs where the hero has a plan that does not really seem like a plan. You just know there is something being missed of vital importance, unfortunately during the early years when they dubbed these films they often times did less translating and more insert whatever sort of make sense and that seems the case here.The title of "The Sword and the Dragon" makes one think that both play a vital role in this film. Well neither does, as the hero rarely pulls the sword out and the dragon only has a short scene in the beginning and a longer scene at the end. It looks very good, however, as it reminded me of Godzilla's foe King Gidorah. It looks like they made a fairly large sized model of it too. My guess is though that the original Russian title made no reference to either the sword or the dragon.The set pieces in this one looked great. The forest the hero goes to looks really good with its large and twisted trees. They also do an okay job at a full scale battle, though one will see that there really was not much done during the battle after the two sides rushed each other. The castle and village look good and like I said the production did a great job especially considering it was 1956. It is one of the reasons I have to believe that the story would be much better if it was not dubbed. I just do not see them putting all this effort into everything else, but not the story.So, from what I saw it was a incoherent movie with great scenery and a cool looking dragon. I am sure the film would be better if seen in its original Russian, but I saw what I saw and that is what I reviewed. I know a lot of people bash MST3K at times for putting down movies such as these, but without them I never would have seen this film at all and I bet that goes for a lot of other people as well. It is also not their fault that the film was horribly reedited and dubbed for American audiences. It was, for me, an interesting watch and in the end most certainly not one of the worst films I have seen them do.

imdb-sergivs I just watched it for the first time, the original Russian-language version restored in 2001. I really enjoyed it. It definitely belonged on MST3K. I grew up in USSR but somehow never saw it as a child. Maybe it was not broadcast because it needed restoration, maybe because it's pretty ridiculous. Probably the former.As somebody noted, the make-up job on Solovey-razboynik (wind devil?) is pretty impressive. He shows up about 10-15 mins into the film.Note a repeating theme on the soundtrack, an interesting rip-off of Ravel's Bolero.This film would definitely suffer a lot from bad dubbing. The original dialogue really suits the acting. It is a pastiche of Russian epic tales, and half of it is written in blank verse in a certain meter: two anapests, one trochee, one dactyl.Tamara Nosova played a maid at Vladimir's palace and is not credited on IMDb. You just get a few glimpses of her.

William Gruendler First things first: Get ahold of a good recording of Rheinhold Gliere's 1908-11 Op.42 - his Third Symphony - "Ilya Muromets".... Take a long drive in the most spectacular countryside you can find and make it a LONG drive as the symphony is 85 minutes LONG! In the grand tradition, then, of master Russian composers, Gliere' (think Bruckner or Mahler with Wagnerian overtones in a strong Russian accent!) created a complex and moving masterpiece of visual splendor. Google Gliere' and see what I mean; this masterwork is greatly beloved worldwide. You and the little kids must see this epic film of the bylini, or MYTH of Ilya Muromets. If you get the DVD, I suggest watching it with the symphony in your headphones and the remote in your hand. You will be able, with creative effort and grand delight, to 'orchestrate' the movie to the music, and vice-versa! It will thrill you even more to be such an interactive participant. In what for this writer is an indelible childhood memory: standing in a LONG line outside the Lowes Theater on Grand Avenue in St. Louis, Missouri - after drooling over the TV commercials for weeks- then being totally enthralled by Ptushko's theatrics and cinematic wonders on the Big Screen! But to top it off, dear Daddy took us home and cranked up the old SCOTT HI FI, put the 1956 Columbia recording of the #3 in B Minor by the Philaelphia Orchestra with Eugene Ormandy (see the review at AMAZON by Avrohom Leichtling of Botstein's version with the LSO) and we acted it out all over again! What a stirring memory even now as I type these words! SO....Get this movie and see it with a couple of six and seven year old boys and pretend right along with them!