Forbidden Empire
Short description
Early 18th-century cartographer Jonathan Green sets out from Europe on a scientific journey eastward. After travelling through Transylvania and crossing the Carpathian Mountains, he loses his way in heavy fog and arrives at an isolated village deep in the woods. Its inhabitants look like no one he has met before, and they have cut themselves off from the outside world behind a deep moat, convinced this will keep evil away. Green comes to suspect that the evil they fear is already among them, and he sets out to uncover the truth behind the place and the mythic figure tied to it.
The film is directed by Oleg Stepchenko, who co-wrote the screenplay with Alexander Karpov. It is his second feature, following Jacked$ in 2004, and it was later followed by Iron Mask in 2019. Jason Flemyng plays Jonathan Green, with Aleksey Chadov, Agniya Ditkovskite, Yuriy Tsurilo, Olga Zaytseva and Aleksandr Yakovlev among the cast; 22 cast members and 47 crew members are credited.
A co-production involving Russia, Ukraine, Germany, the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic, it was made for about 26 million USD and took roughly 35 million USD worldwide. On IMDb it holds a rating of 5.2 from around 7,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 5.9 from some 347 votes.
What's left behind the scenes
- Initially, to demonstrate that the film was in production, Alexey Petrukhin and Oleg Stepchenko shot a promotional trailer for the film in 2006, in 18 hours, in which Petrukhin himself played the role of Khoma Brut. In early 2007, this teaser was released in cinemas, although the script had not yet been written; the film's actual production began only a year later, and filming was completed only in March 2012.
- Vincent Cassel, Christian Slater, Tim Roth, Sean Bean, Jason Statham, Brad Pitt, Bruce Willis, Keanu Reeves, and Pierce Brosnan were all considered for the role of the main character – traveler and cartographer Jonathan Green. Official negotiations were held with each of the actors.
- The prototype for the main character – Jonathan Green – was Guillaume Levasseur de Beauplan (1595-1685) – a French engineer and military cartographer, author of the books “Description of Ukraine” and “From Transylvania to Muscovy.”
- The main character's carriage was specially designed and built by one of the German automotive corporations. The design turned out to be so modern that its technical characteristics can compete with the latest cars, but externally it remained a model of transport from the 18th century. The carriage cost $75,000. There is also a duplicate carriage worth $23,000, which was used for filming interiors.
- The total number of people involved in the film crew throughout the entire production of the film was 923.
- Work on the set design took more than 6 months, and as a result, an entire village of 21 houses was built, with a guard tower, a high palisade, antique cannons and other attributes characteristic of 18th-century Ukraine.
- According to Valery Zolotukhin, the most difficult moment for him during filming was smoking a pipe. As it turned out, Valery Sergeevich had long given up this harmful habit.
- Model Natalia Vodianova was supposed to star in the film, but her contract forbade her from changing her appearance. The role required her to get a haircut and dye her hair. As a result, the role of Nastusya went to Agniya Ditkovskite.
- A technology called "local GPS" was developed specifically for filming, which solved the problem of combining virtual and real sets.
- Five different looks, involving varying makeup and costumes, were designed for just one traveler, Jonathan Green.
- The wings of the monster characters were made and filmed separately, as synchronizing them live was difficult – they were very heavy.
- The Czech National Postal Service issued a series of commemorative postage stamps featuring the film's characters.
- The youngest actor in the film was 8 months old during filming, while the oldest was 71 years old.
- "Viy" became the highest-grossing Russian film of 2014, with box office receipts of 1.2 billion rubles, and the fourth in the list of the most successful domestic projects in the entire history of distribution (as of June 2015).
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