This film belongs to the theme of humans searching for truth. East Asian folk literature in general has very few adventure stories, so perhaps it also reflects that Asian people are not interested in exploring or even conquering fate. Therefore, stories like "Brave Park" are very commendable. They seem to be both ironic and question the elite's attitude towards society : Do you sit and feel sorry for yourself or do you want to improve your situation ?

The following is a very famous Vietnamese story, which was composed around the 1950s under the influence of Andersen and Grimms. The film adaptation is also quite popular (made in the Czechoslovakian style), although the effects are quite poor.

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THE POOR SCHOLAR AND THE JADE EMPEROR

Once upon a time there was a poor scholar. During the day, he had to work as a hired laborer to have money to go to school. He lived a miserable life until he was thirty years old but was still poor.

One day, he thought : "I heard that in the East Sea there is an island where the Jade Emperor often comes to rest. I have to go there to meet Him to complain because He has left us poor for too long".

The next day, he packed his bags and left. The journey was truly arduous. Soon the food he brought with him ran out, so he had to stop at a roadside house to beg for food. This homeowner is a rich man. He was kind and sent servants to prepare dinner for him to eat. Hearing him talk about going to see the Jade Emperor, the homeowner gave him some travel money and advised : "By the way, please ask Jade Emperor to do me a favor. I haven't done anything wrong in my whole life, but why did my wife and I only have one daughter and she was mute right from her birth ?".

He accepted and left to continue his journey. Soon, the money was gone and he had to stop at a small house to ask for help. The owner also served him food to eat. After knowing the purpose of his trip, that man kindly gave him rice and said : "If you meet Jade Emperor, please ask something for me. I have an orange tree planted in front of my house. The branches and leaves are lush and green, but why do oranges never bear fruit ?".

He accepted and left. He walked forever until he reached the beach. Looking out at the vast ocean, not seeing a ship, he felt depressed. Suddenly a huge turtle emerged from the water. Turtle told him : "Climb on my back ! I will take you to the island to meet Jade Emperor. However, by the way, please ask Jade Emperor for me why I've been here for a thousand years and am still living as a turtle without changing my fate ?".

Waiting for the scholar to step down, the turtle suddenly parted the waves and swam away. Soon the island appeared before him. He said goodbye to the turtle and then stepped onto the island. Encountering a mountain range blocking his way, he tried to climb to the top and then sat down at a tree stump to wait.

One morning, while waiting, he suddenly saw a bright light on the top of the mountain. Then the Jade Emperor leisurely stepped out from that light. He walked up to the Jade Emperor and immediately asked about the turtle's advice. After listening, Jade Emperor said : "He must release the pearl in his mouth to be reincarnated".

He continued to tell the matter of the orange grower. Jade Emperor said : "That orange does not bear fruit because there is gold under its root". If so, he asked the fate of the mute maiden, then Jade Emperor replied : "She can't speak just because she hasn't met the principal graduate to open her mouth yet".

Finally, he was about to ask about himself, Jade Emperor suddenly snapped : "How unlucky ! I left my Celestial Palace and came down here to find some peace and quiet, but I didn't expect to be disturbed by mortals".

Having finished speaking, Jade Emperor rode a cloud and flew back to Heaven. The scholar had to sadly turn on his heel. When he reached the sea, he saw turtles waiting. While carrying him back to the mainland, the turtle asked : "How is my business ?". He replied : "You must spit out a pearl from your mouth to be reincarnated". The turtle spit out the pearl and gave it to him. He immediately turned into a beautiful goldfish to swimm around.

When he arrived at the orange grower's house, the owner came out to greet him and asked : "Have you asked the Jade Emperor for me ?". He replied : "Already ! There is gold under the orange tree. Dig up the gold and your orange tree will bear fruit". Indeed, the homeowner took a hoe and dug up a pot of gold. He was so happy that he gave half to the scholar.

After that, he continued on his way. He arrived at the capital right at the time when the king was organizing the poinsettia exam. Because he carries a precious pearl in his body, he becomes unusually intelligent. Having the gold, he immediately stayed to buy a tent and bed, then prepare some books to enter the exam. That year he passed the exam and ranked first in the gold board.

Not long after, principal graduate rode the royal horse honorably back to the village. When he passed by a rich man's house, he did not forget his promise and stopped his horse to visit. It's strange ! Before the scholar could tell the owner about Jade Emperor's answer, the mute daughter came out to welcome the principal graduate. Seeing him, she suddenly exclaimed out loud. Her father was so happy that he married his daughter to the principal graduate.

Despite the nice animation technique, I didn't like this one very much.

It seemed to intentionally be trying to pull down into the mud everything that's beautiful and beloved by those who love classical Russian culture (and the traditional West European culture that Russians like), but to me it just ended up reflecting the ugliness in its creators' heads instead (or in the environment around them?).

There was constant swearing, nudity and vulgarity throughout the film.

Some things that happen (spoilers ahead):

00:50 - the bears in Shishkin's famous painting get shot at right afterwards
01:18 - Shishkin himself was the killer, and wasn't actually an artist but a murderer and plagiarist
06:46 - symbolic (?) destruction of traditional European art of the sort still liked by Russians, and the owner made to look ridiculous
11:30 - circus owner who wants to visit Russia is drinking himself to death
13:36 - Russians are a formless, faceless crowd with no individuality or voice
14:10, 16:24, 19:27 - any Russian artist or entrepreneur immediately gets hauled off to Siberia for no reason
Also, a lot of famous Russian paintings (such as Natalia Goncharova's "Sunflowers") get thrown into the garbage throughout the film

I guess I'm filing this under the "these people were feeling really salty about Russians in general" category... ;)

I greatly preferred Riho Unt's 1987 film that's also on the site.

I learned this story from the 2nd grade Literature textbook. But of course, the story was very long so we only had accessed to an excerpt. Its idea is quite strange, so with a child's mentality, you will think this boy is so stupid. However, let's look from the eyes of adults to learn how profound the author is.

In recent years, the problem of school violence in Vietnam has been increasing at a terrifying rate and has even reduced the reputation of the minister of education (who is my former university lecturer). It's true that textbooks still teach children ideas about honor, morality, and even children's rights ; but in reality, they are influenced by a lot of junk in society, so they only act according to their feelings. I myself am also one of the millions of victims of school violence, so I understand how useful honor will be if we actually enforce it, instead of just saying it but not doing it.

>>7
>In Vietnam, we are often taught that, "Russia" means "Eastern Rus", so it is absurd to use "Russia" in the context of the 12th century.
Well, "Russia" has meant different things at different times and places. So whether it is absurd or not depends on which meaning you're using...
Until WW1, and often even after, the discourse in Russian and English imperial capitals and academic centres was that "Russians" are what are called "Eastern Slavs" today, and could further be split into "Great Russians" (Velikorossy), who mainly live in what's now known as Russia, "Little Russians" (Malorossy) who mainly live in what's now known as Ukraine, and "White Russians" (Belorossy) who mainly live in what's now known as Belarus (the country that has kept its name the closest). Kind of like Americans being separated into Yankees, Dixielanders, Appalachians, etc, but with a longer history and more language/dialect divergence.
As a result of WW1, due to both external (Germans conquering and ruling much of the Western Russian Empire for some years) and internal (communists coming to power) forces, the names shifted. But not everybody used the changed terms or was even aware of what this shift of terminology meant or why it was done.

I'm not quite sure, but I have this impression that in the medieval era, and also in the Imperial era until WW1, if you'd asked most people in any of those three regions what they were, they would have said "I'm Russian", and if you asked them to specify further, they would have said "I'm Great Russian" or "I'm Little Russian" or "I'm White Russian". After WW1, the "Great Russians" kept answering "I'm Russian" but the others were encouraged to not answer that way any more, and their native language/dialect variations were heavily promoted by the state (for various reasons, such as wanting the Soviet state to be more multicultural).

Perhaps if the capital of the East Slavs had stayed in Kiev/Kyiv, the locals would have gained more territory than they ended up having and been proudly calling THEMSELVES the "Great Russians" and eventually simply "Russians", while the people living in Moscow might've been encouraged to call themselves Novgorodians or Pomorians or something, and speaking Novgorodian or Pomorian which honest-to-goodness has nothing to do with "Russian", and is a member of the civilized Scandinavian family of nations... ;)

So eventually, you got the current situation where "Russian" usually means what "Great Russian" used to mean (in English it can also just mean "citizen of Russia", while in Russian that's two different words), and "East Slav" means what "Russian" used to mean.

But the famous 19th century writers are still widely read, so the old meanings are not forgotten either! It causes a lot of misunderstandings, since two people can use the same words and mean very different things by them. If you want to increase the risk of eventual conflict between people, that's a pretty good way to do it...

Well, since I know this is going to come up...
I'm aware of the whole Kyiv/Kiev thing. In this case, I used "Kiev" and Russian personal names for the credits in the subtitles because this film was made in the Soviet era and that was more widespread at the time (plus for names, I'm less likely to make a mistake that way).

For post-independence Ukrainian cartoons on this site, I use the Ukrainian transliterations.

>>2
Will try to watch them !
Despite the "weirdness" of the film, the metaphore is quite simple so o I wouldn't be surprised if kids understood it, but I'm also surprised how kids weren't scared of the surrealism and disturbing scenes haha, but I guess it was the times

>>4
Oh besides the CW I punted out here, I was just thinking of pointing out in next films (if I find it) distubing and graphic stuff that are sensitive to the regular audience. (nudity not counting as it is rather natural) For example: scenes of decapitation, SA, self deleting(? and graphic blood scenes

An odd feature of this cartoon is that the traffic lights are "upside down"; they have red on the bottom and green on the top.

Some people on RuTracker asked about this back in 2013 - here's a translation of the reply of user "dvdss" there, who did some research:

Previously, the location of signals at traffic lights was not regulated, and the red light in some countries was located at the bottom of the traffic light. Only in 1949 was the Convention on Road Traffic and the Protocol on Road Signs and Signals adopted in Geneva. This unified national traffic standards and established the modern type of traffic light with the red signal located on top.

Therefore, the pre-WW2 Soviet New Year tree toy "Traffic Light" (Светофор), made of cardboard, had the upper light green and the lower one red. (The year of installation of the first traffic lights in the USSR was 1935)



This suggests the conclusion that, despite the fact that the cartoon was created in 1952, and the adoption of the Convention on the Unification of Colors in Geneva occurred in 1949, these rules reached the USSR a little later (at least 3 years later). Although in those days this was probably not the most important thing in the country, but an interesting fact!

And for sure, the traffic lights were not switched over to the new color layout in one day, so the director and artists likely drew the old traffic light model only because the new ones were not yet in front of their eyes - but who knows!

>>1
I agree, this is one of my favourites as well. Also, for how abstract and metaphorical parts of it are, it is surprisingly well-received by children.

I've got to add more of Hrzhanovskiy's films on here, but many of them require attentive and careful translation (such as his famous Pushkin trilogy).

>>3
>Right now, would it be fine if I mark some "heavy scenes" (graphic stuff) in the comments just in case as CW/TWs (only if it's really present)?
If you feel like it, sure. I suppose for this one, I thought the words "tragic folk story" in the first sentence was enough of a hint that this wouldn't be easy viewing. Mostly, I've been writing warnings for things like nudity, even when it's not actually objectionable (like in "Olympians" - which has male nudity but which I don't feel deserves the "NSFW" genre). Are there some other things you've noticed, then?