To Kill a Dragon

A city has been ruled by the Dragon for centuries. The Dragon removes opposition, the people have grown used to it, and because they are used to it they are the force actually holding the arrangement up. The wandering knight Lancelot arrives meaning to save the beautiful Elsa and kill the monster. But he can only win once the people stop being afraid, because their fear is what feeds the Dragon. Mark Zakharov adapted it from the play Yevgeny Schwartz wrote in the forties, which went unstaged for years. The film appeared during perestroika, shortly before the Soviet Union came apart, and was read in that light. Aleksandr Abdulov, Oleg Yankovsky and Yevgeny Leonov star.