Last Knight (film)

The Last Knight, also known as The Last Warrior

It was scheduled to have a wide release on October 26, 2017. As of November 26, 2017, the film became the highest-grossing local-language release of all time in Russia, surpassing Stalingrad with 1.68 billion rubles ($28.8 million)[1] and topping out at $30.5 million. In Russia, the film holds the 12th place biggest box-office audiences.^[7] This was Disney Russia's second film produced specifically for the Russian market, with the first being The Book of Masters (2009).^[1]

A sequel, titled The Last Warrior: Root of Evil, was released in January 2021 and a third film The Last Warrior: A Messenger of Darkness was released in December 2021.

Plot

In Belogorie, a parallel version of

In modern Moscow, Ivan Naydenov is a young orphan who makes his way in life by being a con artist. He poses as a "white mage", stars in rigged psychic contest shows, and performs "rites" for clients. He starts having doubts about his life choices, however, when asked to cure a comatose boy.

One day, during an escape from a client's husband, Ivan miraculously ends up in Belogorie. This magical world is inhabited by Russian fairy tales characters and creatures. A volkhv appears and claims that Ivan is the lost son of Ilya Muromets, hidden on Earth many years ago.

Ivan is then captured by Varvara's warriors and brought to prince

• Viktor Khorinyak as Ivan Ilyich Naydenov / Ivan the Fool, appears on the television screen in the role of magician and psychic Svetozar.^[6]
  • Igor Yashanin as Ivan Naydenov in childhood
• Vasilisa the Wise, trying to destroy the spell that turned all her relatives into frogs
  , Vasilisa learned to fight in life.
• Koschei
• Elena Yakovleva as Baba Yaga, a witch living in a cabin on chicken legs.
  • Svetlana Kolpakova as young appearance of Baba Yaga
• Ekaterina Vilkova as Princess Varvara, an evil sorceress.
• Yevgeny Dyatlov [ru] as Dobrynya Nikitich, a fearless bogatyr who turned to evil. He is married to Varvara.
• Sergey Burunov as Vodyanoy, a merman, the lord of rivers, lakes and sea waters.
• Aleksandr Semchev as Chudo-Yudo, a monster that lives in the
  gorge
  .
• Yuriy Tsurilo as Ilya Muromets
• Wolfgang Cerny as Alyosha Popovich
• Timofey Tribuntsev as the white mage Svetozar, a volkhv
• Oleg Chevelyov as Varvara's guard
• Vladimir Ipatov as a boyar
• Andrey Trushin as a bogatyr, warrior
• Yelena Valyushkina as Galina, Ivan’s housekeeper, Varvara’s mother

English dubbing

The film was dubbed into English with the title The Last Warrior at the UK studio

• Chris Kaye as Ivan Naydenov / Ivan the Fool^[8]
• Catherine Zeta-Jones as Varvara
• Kat Lozano as ?^[9]
• Mike Myers as Vodyanoy

Production

Development

In May 2016, production began in Moscow and other locations. The premier was set for October 19, 2017, on the eve of school holidays with potential for being released in the IMAX format. The production companies applied to the Cinema Foundation for state support.^[6] Filming took place in Moscow and near Sochi.^[10] As of November 26, 2017, the film became the highest-grossing local-language release of all time in Russia, surpassing Stalingrad with 1.68 billion rubles ($28.8 million)^[1]

Casting

The main character of the film, Ivan Naydenov, performed by Viktor Khorinyak, was conceived as a more serious hero, although there was also something left of the character of Kostya Anisimov from the TV series Kitchen, for example, the ability to quickly find a way out of a difficult situation.

Filming

According to the director, a watermark created by computer-generated imagery.

Music

Track listing

Release

The film is scheduled to be released in the

The exact budget for the movie is unknown but it's estimated to be somewhere between $6[13] and $8 million.^[14] In 2017 production company Yellow, Black and White (YBW) revealed that the overall production and promotion budget was 370 million Russian Rubles (~$8 million), equally distributed between Disney and YBW. The film is partially sponsored by Russian government through Cinema Fund, which gave 100 million Russian Rubles to YBW, although half of that sum was returned to state-owned Cinema Fund thanks to the movie's commercial success.^[2]

Box office

The Last Knight in less than two weeks of rental broke the bar of 1 billion rubles and became the highest-grossing domestic film of 2017, according to the Unified Automated Information System (UAIS) (this record was broken after a short time by the sports drama Going Vertical (2017 film), which earned at the box office 3 billion rubles).^[15][16] In total, The Last Knight collected more than 1.7 billion rubles at the box office, having recovered its budget in 11 days.^[17]

The reason for success is found both in a positive word of mouth, and in the active support of distributors.^[18][19]

Critical response

Critics' opinions about the film were divided, it received conflicting ratings - but mostly average, neutral. According to the "Criticism" aggregator, The Last Knight received an average rating of 67/100 in the press (based on 29 reviews).^[20] Igromania magazine stated that the film is straightforward and that the reason why the villains of fairy tales, such as Koschey or Baba Yaga, went over to the good side, was not explained in the film. But he praised the film for good humor.^[21] Magazine "Mir Fantastiki" gave the film six out of ten stars and stated that the film could not escape the cliche with the main character, which could be ridiculed in Shrek fifteen years ago, because of which the film suffers from a lack of originality, and also stated that the reason why the villains save the world of fairy tales was not disclosed in the film. However, the magazine also praised the film for humor.^[22]

According to the results of a survey organized by the

The Russian Disney office announced a sequel to the film in February 2018 with Yellow, Black and White co-production and Vitaliy Shlyappo leading the writers.^[7] The film is called The Last Warrior: Root of Evil and was released on December 24 in 2020.^[24][25] The third part, The Last Warrior: A Messenger of Darkness ^[26] is scheduled for 2021.

See also

• The Last Warrior: Root of Evil (2021 film)
• The Last Warrior 3 (2021 film)

References