An Ordinary Miracle (1978)

Обыкновенное чудо

A wizard turns a bear into a young man, who will turn back into a bear the moment a princess kisses him.

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Year
1978
Director
Mark Zakharov
Starring
Oleg Yankovsky, Alexander Abdulov, Evgenia Simonova, Andrei Mironov, Yevgeny Leonov, Ekaterina Vasilyeva
Genre
Fantasy, Romance, Comedy
Running time
2 h 18 min · 2 parts
Based on
The play by Yevgeny Schwartz
Language
Russian, English subtitles
Studio
Mosfilm

About the film

In a quiet mountain house lives a Wizard who is bored of ordinary life. For fun he turns a bear into a handsome young man, with one condition: if a princess falls in love with him and kisses him, he will become a bear again.

Of course a king and his princess soon arrive. The princess and the young man fall in love, and he runs away rather than lose his human form. Around them a crowd of courtiers, ministers and hunters make the story funnier and sadder at once.

Mark Zakharov's musical fairy tale for grown-ups is a Russian New Year tradition, full of wit, beautiful songs by Gennady Gladkov and a dream cast.

Did you know?

  • It was first shown on Soviet television over the New Year holiday of 1979.
  • It is based on a play by Yevgeny Schwartz, who also wrote The Dragon.
  • Andrei Mironov plays the scheming minister-administrator.

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