The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

Imagine going into a movie theatre at 10 AM and while you are watching the (at best) mediocre animation film and as the children finally stop screaming 30 minutes into the film, there is a break. You might think it’s an early break, maybe something specifically for children? But the reality is the film’s total runtime is actually only a bit over an hour. You would definitely start to think why you paid for a film ticket to watch a one-hour film. And, if you had any doubts that the film might not be worth it, The Princess and The Dragon definitely isn’t.

The Princess and the Dragon follows young Princess Barbara who is dealing with the disappearance of her mother, the deep grief of her father over his missing wife, and the constant scolding of her father’s evil consultant Balthasar. Barbara stumbles onto a magical book that leads her to a new world, where she befriends a dragon named Dragosha. Together Barbara and Dragosha embark on an adventure in an attempt to find Barbara’s mother and reveal Balthasar’s true relationship with the king.

The animation feature (if we can actually call it that) is originally Russian, which you could only tell by the heavy accent that Barbara has as well as the phrasing of the –clearly translated- script.

Translated films are usually hard to get right because so much gets lost in translation and, when it comes to an animation film, this issue is much more important because with the target audience being children.

If you are thinking of taking your kids to this, they will probably enjoy the colourfully animated characters, they might not mind the out of tune songs or the bad singing, and they will probably not think that the film is just a group of clichés from previous animations. All of this would be true if they are young enough; if your children are old enough to have watched other animated films, then do not take them to see this one.