Studio: Pannonia Film Studio, Siriol Animation, S4C Wales, NHK Enterprises International
Distributor: Budapest Film (Hungary); Entertainment Film Distributors (U.K.)
Produced by: Robin Lyons
Short Synopsis
In a mountain kingdom, Princess Irene is left in the care of her nursemaid while her widowed father the King travels. Lost in a forest one evening, she is cornered by deformed creatures and saved by a singing boy, Curdie, a miner's son, who explains that they are goblins, and that goblins cannot stand singing. The next day Irene finds a secret door to a tower where she meets the spirit of her great-great-grandmother, also named Irene, who warns that danger is coming. Curdie, meanwhile, falls into the goblins' underground realm and overhears the Goblin King and Queen plotting to flood the mines and drown the humans, while their spoiled son, Prince Froglip, plans to kidnap Irene and marry her so that the humans will have to accept goblin rule. Captured, Curdie is rescued by Irene, who follows a magical invisible thread given to her by her grandmother. The miners shore up the tunnels against the flood. When the goblins attack the castle through a hidden tunnel, Curdie shows the people how to fight them by stamping and singing, and they are driven out. As they retreat, the goblins release the floodwaters, which rise through the castle. Froglip seizes Irene on the ramparts, and with her help Curdie knocks him off the walls, saving the kingdom.
Why It Matters
- The film brings George MacDonald's Victorian fairy tale, a quiet influence on Tolkien, to the screen with a mix of eastern European and British styles: the goblins are grotesque and comic, and the princess's glowing tower and magic thread give the story a gentle, dreamlike quality.
- It was an unusual international co-production between Hungary's Pannonia studio, Wales's Siriol Animation and S4C, and Japan's NHK, one of the first major animated features to come out of the post-communist Hungarian industry. It struggled at the box office in America, where it was released in 1994, but became a cult favourite on television and video.
Notes and Trivia
- Rik Mayall voices the goblin prince Froglip.
- See also: Charlie Strapp and Froggy Ball Flying High (1991), A Troll in Central Park (1994).