IMDb RATING
4.4/10
1.2K
YOUR RATING
A fairytale about a grand life journey of a 10-year-old boy Savva devoted to help his mom and fellow village people to break free from the vicious hyenas.A fairytale about a grand life journey of a 10-year-old boy Savva devoted to help his mom and fellow village people to break free from the vicious hyenas.A fairytale about a grand life journey of a 10-year-old boy Savva devoted to help his mom and fellow village people to break free from the vicious hyenas.
- Director
- Writers
- Stars
- Awards
- 2 nominations total
Maksim Chukharyov
- Savva
- (voice)
Konstantin Khabenskiy
- Anga
- (voice)
Fedor Bondarchuk
- Elza
- (voice)
Lolita Milyavskaya
- Mama Zho Zi
- (voice)
- (as Lolita)
Natalya Ionova
- Pusik
- (voice)
- (as Glukoza)
Grigoriy Leps
- Komar
- (voice)
Nikolay Baskov
- Ryzhiy Um
- (voice)
Sergey Garmash
- Moran
- (voice)
Yuliya Savicheva
- Nanti
- (voice)
Igor Vernik
- Shantagar
- (voice)
Danil Babichev
- Gieny
- (voice)
- …
Aleksandr Chistyakov
- Gor
- (voice)
- …
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
4.41.2K
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Featured reviews
Movie is pretty awful.
Terrible writing and voice acting in the English version was truly awful. Maybe it was just a bad translation. I liked most of the animation style. In English the movie was unwatchable and I had to turn it off half way through. I could not stand listening to any more.
Milla Jovovich's voice acting as the young male lead character was just off. The tones were all wrong, all the wrong emotions, terrible timings. It was distractedly bad and did not fit at all.
I can see where it might of been good in the original Russian. They blew their budget on big name voice actors and got a hack writer to vomit a script. Maybe a fan made subtitled version will become available and I can try watching this again.
Milla Jovovich's voice acting as the young male lead character was just off. The tones were all wrong, all the wrong emotions, terrible timings. It was distractedly bad and did not fit at all.
I can see where it might of been good in the original Russian. They blew their budget on big name voice actors and got a hack writer to vomit a script. Maybe a fan made subtitled version will become available and I can try watching this again.
Don't let your kids watch this animation.
This is one of the worst movies ever rendered. The plot is a series of sections ripped from other stories, with jingoistic characters that have no consistency or growth arc, the animation is pretty average, looking more like something from the 1990's then from 2015.
Awful production and offensive messages
This is the first animation that was imported to Ukraine from Russia AND fully voiced in Ukrainian. Before, we used to only get subtitled versions of Russian movies and TV-shows (though, one might wonder why are we importing anything at all, considering the war). So, despite being understandably cautious, I was expecting something at least half-decent. Russians aren't at all that bad at making animations and movies ― I've watched a lot of them and I've found some very worthy ones.
In "Savva", however, we can clearly see politics bleeding into the territory of art. The result of such process is a piece of not art, but barely concealed propaganda, a product of Russian brainwashing industry. The most prominent example of it is the animation's portrayal of villains ― hyenas, which were painted* in blue and yellow, Ukrainian national colors. Symbolism of this is beyond obvious, it's practically screaming 'Ukrainians are evil'. At this point I was surprised this was even allowed to reach theaters in my country.
Also, one of the voice-acting stars who voiced Ukrainian version of "Savva" was Vladimir Zelensky, an actor and a TV-series director known for his anti-Ukrainian attitude and offensive statements. His photo was even featured on this animation's posters. I hope you can imagine in which way this fact influenced my impressions of the title.
The parts of it that are not trying to plant a toxic idea in your subconscious aren't good either. A pile of random ideas crumpled together, the execution of which is pathetic. Some people might like background music, but to me it seemed like a wasted effort. The story is not interesting, in fact, it's barely even there.
All in all, I'd say "Savva" is just bad. It's poorly made, and it's harmful to your mental health, unless you count brainwashed as a natural state of mind (you WILL get brainwashed, eventually, if you subsequently watch this, or the likes of it). So, please, do yourself a favor and stay away from this atrocity. You'll thank me later.
* ― there's this speculation that they weren't originally supposed to be like this. In the first teaser (03.03.2011) hyenas were shown to be green and yellow, instead of blue and yellow. However, we have to judge the product by its final state.
In "Savva", however, we can clearly see politics bleeding into the territory of art. The result of such process is a piece of not art, but barely concealed propaganda, a product of Russian brainwashing industry. The most prominent example of it is the animation's portrayal of villains ― hyenas, which were painted* in blue and yellow, Ukrainian national colors. Symbolism of this is beyond obvious, it's practically screaming 'Ukrainians are evil'. At this point I was surprised this was even allowed to reach theaters in my country.
Also, one of the voice-acting stars who voiced Ukrainian version of "Savva" was Vladimir Zelensky, an actor and a TV-series director known for his anti-Ukrainian attitude and offensive statements. His photo was even featured on this animation's posters. I hope you can imagine in which way this fact influenced my impressions of the title.
The parts of it that are not trying to plant a toxic idea in your subconscious aren't good either. A pile of random ideas crumpled together, the execution of which is pathetic. Some people might like background music, but to me it seemed like a wasted effort. The story is not interesting, in fact, it's barely even there.
All in all, I'd say "Savva" is just bad. It's poorly made, and it's harmful to your mental health, unless you count brainwashed as a natural state of mind (you WILL get brainwashed, eventually, if you subsequently watch this, or the likes of it). So, please, do yourself a favor and stay away from this atrocity. You'll thank me later.
* ― there's this speculation that they weren't originally supposed to be like this. In the first teaser (03.03.2011) hyenas were shown to be green and yellow, instead of blue and yellow. However, we have to judge the product by its final state.
Far better than the homogenised pasteurised, social lobby driven Disney or Pixar, drivel.
I watched this title recently and found the story to be simple but refreshing. The animation was beautiful, facial expression was novel and not typical boring sighs and rolling of the eyes out of pixar that is so cringe-worthy. It is not by any means even close to anything out of Ghibli studio but over all a far better show that anything out of Hollywood. I was very surprised by so much prejudice in some of the reviews here. It seems some deranged people watch children shows for social or political statement. I rather watch them for entertainment value, and to show some genuine human emotion, that is so much lacking in the factory line production that is called Hollywood. From human emotion depiction this title is OK but not great, (for better human emotion production I refer you to Japanese animation like "Wolf Children") however from entertainment and fantastic Art and faces this animation is very good. The mere fact that girl faces did not have the mean squint smile so common in today Pixar production was well worth the watch. And not once I saw the rolling of the eye or the stupid sigh that is so common. Hope to see more animation like this. Good work. I recommend it
Decent Movie
My 3 year old son enjoys watching this movie on Netflix. We have seen it over and over. There is a lot of characters, and drama in the plot. The music is great as well. The only thing I do not care for in the movie, is the racism comment that is made by the Monkey Queen. When addressing some of her monkeys she calls them "crackers" and they speak with southern/hillbilly accents. It might be that I am from the south, and that is why I find the comment offensive. Or maybe I am thinking too much into it. It took me watching the movie about 10xs (cause when you have a 3 year old that likes a movie, you will watch it over and over and over again)...to catch the comment. I am trying to decide whether I want to continue to allow my son to watch it after the political/racist comment was made. I would advise parents to watch the movie first, to make sure it is something you would want your children to watch.
Did you know
- Alternate versionsThe UK release was cut, the distributor chose to remove a single use of strong language ('motherf**ker') in order to obtain a PG classification. An uncut 15 classification was available.
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official sites
- Language
- Also known as
- Savva y el dragón de fuego
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $30,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross worldwide
- $5,823,956
- Runtime
- 1h 25m(85 min)
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 2.39 : 1
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