Go back to Middle-earth the way it was imagined—in low-fi Soviet-era brilliance. I am a massive Lord of the Rings fan and have devoured every iteration I can find. But one has always eluded me. It's the one made years ago, inside Soviet-era Russia. It was a made-for-television adaptation that for legal reasons seems to be "loosely inspired" by Lord of the Rings and is titled Khraniteli. The legend of this film has been told far and wide. The costumes were rudimentary, the music was scored by a rock musician channeling classical roots, and the special effects seemed fit for a local theater production. But this project seemed lost to the annals of time. It was on Leningrad TV, which doesn't exist anymore. But last week, 5TV, the successor to Leningrad TV, posted the movie online. Since then, it's rocketed to hundreds of thousands of views, and people are rejoicing. “Fans have been searching the archives but had not able to find this film for decades,” wrote World of Fantasy, a Russian-language publication that has written about adaptations of Tolkien’s work. Read More...
Published By: NoFilmSchool - Monday, 5 April, 2021