The ring of the dragon
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The ring of the dragon |
| Original title | Desideria e l'anello del drago |
| Country of production | Italy |
| original language | Italian |
| Publishing year | 1994 |
| length | 186 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Lamberto Bava |
| script | Gianni Romoli |
| production | Lamberto Bava Andrea Piazzesi |
| music | Amedeo Minghi |
| camera | Romano Albani |
| cut | Piero Bozza |
| occupation | |
| |
The Ring of the Dragon (Original: Desideria e l'anello del drago ) is a two-part Italian fairy tale film with Anna Falchi and Franco Nero from 1994. The two-parter was first shown on television in Germany from December 25th to 26th, 1994 .
action
The Dragon King rules a vast kingdom, which he expands more and more through merciless wars. His power comes from a mighty ring, the ring of the dragon , which gives him superhuman strength. After defeating his greatest rival, King Charles, he finds an orphaned baby in a forest, a girl it turns out. He baptizes it with the name Selvaggia and takes it to his castle, where he wants to raise it with his daughter Princess Desideria. While Desideria is always gentle and friendly, Selvaggia develops into a spoiled, malicious child who plays with her sister with the help of magic tricks and ensures that her parents constantly punish Desideria. Even as both girls mature into young women, Selvaggia continues to intrigue against Desideria in order to wrest the inheritance of the throne from her. With the ring of the dragon she wants to free her true father and her people, who were turned into wolves by the sea fairy long ago.
Since the Dragon King was once prophesied that he would lose his kingdom to a young rebel, which is why he mercilessly persecutes every rebel, he is increasingly concerned about his successor. Out of displeasure with his biological daughter, he wants to marry Desideria off against her will. To this end, he lets the princes from all the realms that he suppresses come to visit. At the same time, he finally succeeded in capturing King Karl's son, Prince Viktor, who had been living underground with his people until then. When he is brought to the castle in chains, Desideria catches a glimpse of him and is fascinated by his proud appearance. After she refuses to choose one of her suitors as a husband, which angered her father all the more, she decides to run away. Disguised, she tries to leave the castle at night. She meets Prince Viktor, who is being held captive in a cage. She releases him and he thanks him with a kiss. But he can't see through her cloak who saved him.
Thereupon Desideria flees into the woods. She is only accompanied by Sorriso, a talking doll that her wet nurse once gave her. When she is pursued by wolves and finds refuge in a tree, Sorriso helps her, who can not only speak but also do magic and who now grants her three wishes. With her first wish, Sorriso conjures up the wolves in cages so that they can escape the danger. But when Desideria is attacked by three witches in the desert, it is Prince Viktor who saves her. Fearing that he might regard her as an enemy, she withholds the fact that she is the dragon king's daughter and instead pretends to be a mute, insignificant girl.
In the meantime, Prince Lisandro, the strongest of the suitors, urges the King to keep his word and offer them a princess to marry. And so the king decides that the princes should fight for the hand of Selvaggia in a knightly tournament. The winner should get her as his wife and inherit the ring of the dragon . Through her magical abilities, Selvaggia learns that Desideria and Prince Viktor have become closer in the desert. Should both marry, the law according to Desideria would still have the throne. To prevent this, Selvaggia casts a love spell on Prince Viktor . He, who was just about to confess his love to Desideria, is now induced by the magic to return to the castle to pay court to Selvaggia. Desideria follows him desperately to the castle, where he now also wants to take part in the tournament. After Viktor has defeated all the other princes, especially Lisandro, Desideria sees only one option. With her second wish, she lets Sorriso transform her into a red knight. As the latter she triumphs over Viktor in battle and wins the hand of Selvaggia, with which she finally rides away. When Desideria Selvaggia reveals herself to be her sister in the desert, Viktor also arrives at the scene. Since he still desires Selvaggia through his enchantment, he had taken up the chase and is now bringing Selvaggia back to the castle. Out of gratitude, the Dragon King forgives his former rival and arranges the wedding.
When Desideria manages to attend Viktor and Selvaggia's wedding, she kisses Viktor on the mouth, whereupon the love spell is broken. Now he wants to marry Desideria, but Selvaggia comes before them. She reaches for the ring of power and in her anger turns into a mighty dragon while the court freezes through snow and ice. Only Viktor and Desideria can escape the cold in time. Together they try to kill the dragon. But he seems invulnerable. Only the crystal sword of the sea fairy can penetrate the dragon's armor. But anyone who claims the power of the sword is doomed to dwell forever in the world of sea fairy. However, Viktor consciously procures the sword and continues his fight. But in the end it is Desideria who gives the dragon the fatal blow with a throw of the sword. Fatally injured, the monster is transformed back into Selvaggia, who, lying dying, apologizes ruefully for her actions. To prevent Viktor from having to stay with Seefee forever, Sorriso makes a proposal to Desideria. With her last wish, she should turn the doll into a Viktor doppelganger. Desideria initially refuses to give up her beloved doll, but Sorriso insists. And so Viktor's image brings the sword back in his place. There follows a wedding in the disenchanted castle, at which Viktor and Desideria happily say yes to each other and for ever renounce the dark power of the dragon ring.
background
Director Lamberto Bava , who is considered a specialist in fantasy films and is also the son of Italian director Mario Bava , produced and staged the two-part TV series The Ring of the Dragon, based on an Italian fairy tale . Before that, he had already achieved great success across Europe with the first parts of the Italian fantasy series Princess Fantaghirò ( Fantaghirò , 1991). In order to be equally successful with The Ring of the Dragon , he hired many employees with whom he had already worked for Princess Fantaghirò , including the screenwriter Gianni Romoli, cameraman Romano Albani and composer Amedeo Minghi , who again provided the soundtrack . When assigning the roles, an international cast was put together. For the role of Desideria it was decided for Anna Falchi , an Italian actor with Finnish origins. As the Dragon King, the Italian Franco Nero was won, who became internationally known primarily for his spaghetti westerns , while Prince Viktor was played by the American and former model Joel Beeson. The Czech Karel Roden was cast as the power-hungry Prince Lisandro and the three German actresses Sophie von Kessel , Billie Zöckler and Ute Christensen each appeared as Selvaggia, wet nurse and dragon queen. The shooting took place in the Czech Republic , Italy and Morocco .
Parallels to Princess Fantaghirò
The Ring of the Dragon shares some similarities with Lamberto Bava's successful TV series Princess Fantaghirò . In addition to similar characters such as prince, princess, fairy , witch and talking dolls, there are also several parallels in terms of content.
- In The Ring of the Dragon , Prince Viktor falls in love with Desideria without seeing her face when she frees him from captivity. He can only recognize her by her voice. In Princess Fantaghirò , Prince Romualdo falls in love with the heroine when half of her face is covered by leaves so that he can only recognize her through her eyes.
- Just as Selvaggia enchants Viktor, the Black Witch from Princess Fantaghirò also casts a love spell on Romualdo.
- Both Desideria and Fantaghirò dress up as men in order to take part in a tournament undetected.
Reviews
“The exciting fantasy fairy tale in front of a picturesque natural backdrop impresses with the enormous amount of costumes and extras as well as the prominent cast. [...] The ring of the dragon is a great, child-friendly and magical fairy tale in the style of Princess Fantaghirò . "
“The Italian legend Franco Nero and up-and-coming beauty Anna Falchi provide some glamor in the cast. Stylistically, the series differs little from Fantaghirò . The plot is confusingly similar to the TV multi-part. Talking stones, nature spirits, fairies and magic spells enliven the series. […] Even if the television series offers nothing innovative, Desideria's adventures are entertaining and thrilling. "
DVD release
- The ring of the dragon . Koch Media GmbH 2007.
Individual evidence
- ↑ cf. wunschliste.de
- ↑ cf. digitalvd.de ( Memento of the original from September 19, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ cf. filmreporter.de ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Web links
- The Dragon Ring in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The ring of the dragon on fernsehserien.de