He's a Dragon

He's a Dragon or He is Dragon (Он – дракон), also in English territories titled as I Am Dragon, and in Germany Dragon: Love is a Scary Tale, is a 2015 Russian 3D romantic fantasy adventure film written and directed by Indar Dzhendubaev and produced by Timur Bekmambetov's company Bazelevs. The two main roles are played by Maria Poezzhaeva and Matvey Lykov. The film is loosely based on Marina and Sergey Dyachenko's 1996 fantasy novel The Ritual.

The action takes place in a fictional fantasy world, which is a stylistic fusion of Medieval Russia with Scandinavian, Celtic and Eastern traditions. The plot is about Princess Miroslava (Poezzhaeva) being abducted by a dragon and carried away to its lair on a remote island, where she encounters a mysterious young man named Arman (Lykov).

The film was theatrically released in Russia by Bazelevs Distribution on December 3, 2015, in RealD 3D, followed by streaming on Netflix. It was the highest-grossing Russian film at the international box office in 2016.

Plot
In the Kievan Rus' of European epics, the people once lived in fear of a dreadful dragon who terrorizes a local village and its people. In order to appease the dragon, the villagers sacrificed young maidens in a ritual and they sing an ancient song to summon the dragon. The dragon abducts one of the maidens, but one brave knight travels to the dragon's island to rescue his love. When he discovers that she is already dead, the knight and the dragon fight a fierce battle in which the dragon is defeated. The knight frees his people from fear and becomes known as the Dragon Slayer. The dreaded ritual is transformed into a wedding ceremony.

Many years later, the young Princess Miroslava (Maria Poezzhaeva), Mira for short, is betrothed to Igor, the Dragon Slayer's grandson. Her father and her sister Yaroslava think she is immature because she still likes fairy tales and playing with toys. Mira is placed on a boat deck in her wedding finery to be sent across the water to her future husband, Igor, but as Igor pulls her boat towards him, his people sing the ancient ritual song at their wedding. The dragon, who was thought to have been dead, captures Mira from the ceremony and takes her to his island.

Mira is held prisoner in a cave where she meets a young man who cannot remember his name. Mira believes he is another prisoner and calls him Arman (Matvey Lykov), but she soon discovers that Arman is the dragon who abducted her. He lives in a human form, holding back his inner beast, but sometimes turns into a dragon against his will. As a dragon, Arman is unable to control himself.

Wishing to become a human, Arman shows Mira the island and gives her a place to create a home while she waits for Igor to rescue her. He tells her, as a dragon boy, he was allowed to choose whether to stay as a human or become a dragon. He chose to remain as a human until the Dragon Slayer killed his father. In his grief and rage, he became a dragon, gaining the knowledge of all dragons who had come before him. Realizing that the dragons were truly monsters, Arman isolated himself on the island to prevent himself from killing humans. Sensing the uncontrollable transition to his dragon form, he would go into the cave where the dragon could not escape and remain there until he reverts to his human form and almost had his dragon form under control. He abducted Mira because of the ritual song sung at her wedding by the villagers who believe that the dragons are extinct. The song caught Arman off guard and he did not have enough time to hide in the cave before responding to the song's summons.

Arman wants to live as a human and crush his inner beast because he is afraid of harming Mira. Mira talks with Arman and teaches him to live as a human. As they get to know one another, Arman and Mira fall in love although Mira is still afraid of the dragon.

The island is bewitched so that only those who are loved by someone on the island can find the way to it. Because Mira's feelings toward Igor change as she fell in love with Arman, Igor meanwhile, searches futilely in a fog. Igor, who does not share his grandfather's bravery, tries to turn back, but his helmsman reminds him of his oath and does not allow him to turn back so that his family name will not be dishonored.

Mira's fear of the dragon causes her to secretly prepare a boat in order to escape. Learning of her preparations, Arman despairs of ever being able to control the dragon and reveals to Mira the real reason why the dragons had brought maidens to the island. The dragons bring young girls to the island so they can burn them to death and from the ashes of each girl, a new dragon was born; that is how Arman was born. Arman orders Mira to leave so that she will avoid this fate. But without Mira, Arman does not know how to continue living.

Mira returns home after finding Igor's boat in the fog. She realizes that Yaroslava secretly loves Igor's honorable helmsman, and her father encourages her to follow her heart's desire. While preparing again for her wedding with Igor, Mira realizes that she still loves Arman and cannot live without him, rejecting an infuriated Igor during the ceremony. While on the boat, Mira sings the ritual song to call the dragon. Arman, meanwhile, is ending his life in order to make sure that there will be no more dragons, but changes into the dragon as he hears the song. He recaptures Mira and brings her to the island, intending to burn her. Mira does not show fear to the dragon and confesses her love for him. This allows Arman to finally control himself as a dragon.

Years later, Mira and Arman are living together on the island with their daughter. Mira flies on her dragon-husband, who is no longer dangerous to her, and during the flight, Arman changes into his human form and the two share a kiss.

Cast
• Maria Poezzhaeva as Princess Miroslava "Mira"

• Matvey Lykov as Arman / Dragon

• * Ivo Gospodinov as Arman as a boy

• Stanislav Lyubshin as Prince, Miroslava's father

• Ieva Andrejevaite as Princess Yaroslava, Miroslava's older sister

• Pyotr Romanov as Igor, grandson of the Dragon Slayer and Miroslava's fiancé

• Andrey Lebedinsky as Igor's helmsman

• Yola Sanko as an old woman-priestess

• Daria Dubnikova as a bride-victim to the Dragon

• Victoria Runtsova as a bride (1)

• Anastasia Dubrovina as a bride (2)

• Alyona Chekhova as a bride (3)

• Lyubov Firsova as the mother of the bride (1)

• Yuri Gorin as the father of the bride

• Aleksandr Luchinin as the Dragon Slayer, Igor's grandfather

• Egor Zubarchuk as Arman's father

• Victor Korolyov

• Marta Timofeeva as Mira and Arman's daughter

Development
He's a Dragon was the feature film directorial debut of Indar Dzhendubaev. To the post of director he was invited by Timur Bekmambetov, who acted as the main producer of the film. Filming took place in the Black Sea.

According to the creators of the film, they have preserved much of the literary original, but at the same time brought new elements to the story.

The film, 85% of which consisted of computer graphics, was drawn with the help of Russian computers.

The posters for the film were created at a 16-hour photo shoot by the photographer Uldus Bakhtiozina. During shooting, only film cameras were used, and the resulting pictures were not subjected to any additional processing, which is an absolute rarity for posters of modern films.

Filming
Principal photography took place at the beginning that August 2014 in Bulgaria is the main scenes were shot on the Black Sea coast and in the picturesque Prohodna cave.

Then the crew will go to the Black Sea coast, in the town of Sinemorets. The Bulgarian stage of filming will end on September 26, 2014, in December 2014 the remaining scenes will be shot in Moscow, Russia.

In the Moscow Pavilions, the initial scenes were completed: the abduction of the main character, flying a dragon, scenes in his den and the finale.

Music
The score was composed by Simon Finley. Russian folk-rock band Melnitsa (ru) recorded a song for the film titled "Rite" (whose title and lyrics reference the novel "The Ritual", on which the film is based). It was, however, not included in the final film. Singer-songwriter Jenia Lubich contributed to the soundtrack with her song Колыбельная тишины (Lullaby of Silence), which plays over the end credits. A music video was released on December 7, 2015, and has over 5 million views on YouTube. The song later appeared on her 2016 studio album Снежно (Snowy).

Post-production
The film's special effects were worked by professionals from the CGF (ru) computer graphics studio, directed by Aleksandr Gorokhov, who had previously been involved in the production of such films.

Release
On November 24, 2015, in Moscow hosted the magnificent premiere took place at the cinema "Karo 11 October". The film was released in the Russian Federation by Bazelevs Distribution on December 3, 2015, and the world premiere of December 4, 2015. The film was released in the United States by 4Digital Media on 6 June 2017.

Marketing
The first trailer was released in the United States in April 2017.

Box office
The film flopped at the Russian box office, collecting only $1.7 million (114 million rubles), and in view of rentals in other CIS countries – $1.8 million, which is significantly less than the film's budget of $18 million. It, however, had great success at the Chinese box office, grossing CN¥60.1 million, making it the most successful film in China in the history of Russian cinema. It was the overall highest-grossing Russian film at the international box office in 2016.

Critical response
The film was met with mixed reviews. Such publications as Film.ru, The Hollywood Reporter, Izvestia and Afisha, responded positively to the film. Boris Ivanov, film critic of Film.ru, stated: "From whatever angle you look at it, the Hollywood movie "Twilight" seems like an amateur performance in comparison to "I am Dragon". Even the computer effects in the Russian production are more convincing. From the point of view of the genre, this is an almost impeccable "feminine" romantic fantasy."

Dmitry Ostashevsky, Russian film critic of  The Hollywood Reporter, stated: "The computer animation and 3D graphics are so good that you begin to regret that such a cool dragon (that is, by the way, recognised as the most technologically complex virtual character in the whole history of Russian cinema) was chosen for the genre of melodrama and not blockbuster."

Others, in particular Mir Fantastiki, Weburg, and Kino-Teatr, rated it as average. Russian Gazette critically panned the film, calling it "unimaginably boring", and the script "delusional".