Upon the Magic Roads is a 2021 Russian live-action/animated fairy tale fantasy film directed by Oleg Pogodin from a screenplay by Aleksey Borodachyov. Produced by CTB Film Company, Russia-1, and CGF Company, the film is an adaptation of the 1850s Russian fairy tale The Little Humpbacked Horse by Pyotr Pavlovich Yershov as well as elements from Slavic folk tales. The film follows other adaptations of the fairy tale including the 1941 live-action feature-length film and the 1947 animated film of the same name filmed in the Soviet Union. The film stars Anton Shagin as Ivan the Fool, and Paulina Andreeva as the Tsar Maiden with the voices of Pavel Derevyanko, Lyasan Utiasheva, and Aleksandr Semchev.
The principal photography took place near Saint Petersburg in 2018. The set pieces tried to recreate the fantasy world by Yershov, filming in an exact copy of the fairy tale city. The film was a film making exhibition requiring professional assistance from costume designers and set designers, a production team, software engineers with background visual effects, actors, actresses and cameramen.
The style used in the film was intended to recreate the Tsarist period of time described in Yershov's fairy tale, using a combination of Russian Art Nouveau and fairy-tale elements. The film tells about John - who is neither a prince, nor a hero, nor a handsome man, but his older brothers even consider him a fool. But everything changes when John has a friend and faithful assistant - the Little Humpbacked Magic Foal. John and the Foal will have to test their friendship, face an insidious adversary and overcome incredible trials to find the Cloud Princess.
Initially, the film was planned to be released on wide screen on 5 March 2020, but later its release was postponed first to 22 October 2020. Upon the Magic Roads was finally released theatrically on February 18, 2021, in Russia by Sony Pictures Productions and Releasing. The film received critical acclaim and commercial acclaim, with critics calling it an extraordinary continuity of cinematic creativity from past to present. The film became a blockbuster and was noted as the highest-grossing film adaptation of Russian literature, amounting to almost a billion rubles. The film is the 51st highest-grossing film of 2021.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
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