Watched The Secret of Anastasia
Oct. 9th, 2015 10:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynet_iiThe Secret of Anastasia is one of those super low budget animated movies you're most likely to find in a bargain bin full of DVDs. It is veeeery loosely based on the life of Anastasia Romanov and the rumors that she survived the Russian Revolution and was quite likely an attempt to cash in on the better known Don Bluth movie that came out the same year and had a similar premise.
Anyway. The Secret of Anastasia plays out similarly to the Bluth film in that an amnesiac Anastasia runs into a con artist (here, a former general named Vladimir) and they decide to track down Anastasia's grandmother, the con artist so he can get his hands on a bunch o' cash, Anastasia so she can reconnect with her past, and the con artist has to teach Anastasia How To Royalty in the mean time.
However, while Anastasia has an antagonist in the form of Necromancer Grigoriy Rasputin and his Humorous Talking Bat Henchman, The Secret of Anastasia has the Cheka chasing after our heroes, a romantic rival for our con artist character in the form of Prince Paul (Who I think isn't based on any actual person, but I dunno for sure), and the supernatural element takes the form of a quartet of walking, talking musical instruments that serve as the amnesiac Anastasia's surrogate family. (This is a really weird movie.)
The musical instruments turn out to be Anastasia's real family- Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, his son Alexei, and his other daughter Tatiana (I guess Olga and Marie don't exist in this weird alternate history)- who are actually dead but for some reason got turned into musical instruments and couldn't tell Anastasia of their true identity or else they'd move onto the afterlife??? the why of this is never explained.
The Secret of Anastasia seems to be primarily known for its villain song, "Prince Charmless," but otherwise I don't see much of it anywhere, possibly because it's terribly animated and written and is generally sort of dumb. I enjoyed it immensely, which may have to do with the fact I was sleep-deprived when I watched it, but I like to think it's because it's one of those bad movies that are more amusingly bad than irritatingly bad.
Anyway. The Secret of Anastasia plays out similarly to the Bluth film in that an amnesiac Anastasia runs into a con artist (here, a former general named Vladimir) and they decide to track down Anastasia's grandmother, the con artist so he can get his hands on a bunch o' cash, Anastasia so she can reconnect with her past, and the con artist has to teach Anastasia How To Royalty in the mean time.
However, while Anastasia has an antagonist in the form of Necromancer Grigoriy Rasputin and his Humorous Talking Bat Henchman, The Secret of Anastasia has the Cheka chasing after our heroes, a romantic rival for our con artist character in the form of Prince Paul (Who I think isn't based on any actual person, but I dunno for sure), and the supernatural element takes the form of a quartet of walking, talking musical instruments that serve as the amnesiac Anastasia's surrogate family. (This is a really weird movie.)
The musical instruments turn out to be Anastasia's real family- Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, his son Alexei, and his other daughter Tatiana (I guess Olga and Marie don't exist in this weird alternate history)- who are actually dead but for some reason got turned into musical instruments and couldn't tell Anastasia of their true identity or else they'd move onto the afterlife??? the why of this is never explained.
The Secret of Anastasia seems to be primarily known for its villain song, "Prince Charmless," but otherwise I don't see much of it anywhere, possibly because it's terribly animated and written and is generally sort of dumb. I enjoyed it immensely, which may have to do with the fact I was sleep-deprived when I watched it, but I like to think it's because it's one of those bad movies that are more amusingly bad than irritatingly bad.
