I've only seen the dubbed version so I'm relying on that alone to write my review.
The Magic Voyage Of Sinbad (Sadko to the purists) is a mildly interesting relic of Soviet propaganda film-making, mixing Marxist philosophies with children's fairy stories.
Sinbad returns home, having gave away a fortune, looking a bit like Lenin in a blonde wig and finding the merchants rich and fat while the rest of the city remains poor and hungry, deviating from the west in that usually the poor people in these types of movies are being subjected to harsh taxation by the state.
Nowhere is it stated how these fat cat merchants got so rich selling to people with no money nor does it matter. They're the villain that needs to be straightened out by Lenin/Sadko/Sinbad.
After outsmarting the capitalists and giving away all their wares, the now brainwashed merchants are portrayed as happy only to have a smiling Lenin take one last dig, "Stupid merchants".
Sadko then embarks on a quest to spread Communism and find the "bird of happiness" only to find treacherous, warmongering, inferiors that reject enlightenment, inhabiting the outside world.
One thing I find very ironic is the racist portrayal of Indians from the supposedly enlightened Soviet Communists, the USSR having formally outlawed racism.
In the end Sinbad/Lenin/Sadko realizes that the bird of happiness (religion) does not exist and orders the ships home. They then drop their blue sails and hoist the red ones while Lenin changes from a gray cape to a crimson one, essentially wrapping himself in the Soviet flag!
The Magic Voyage Of Sinbad (Sadko to the purists) is a mildly interesting relic of Soviet propaganda film-making, mixing Marxist philosophies with children's fairy stories.
Sinbad returns home, having gave away a fortune, looking a bit like Lenin in a blonde wig and finding the merchants rich and fat while the rest of the city remains poor and hungry, deviating from the west in that usually the poor people in these types of movies are being subjected to harsh taxation by the state.
Nowhere is it stated how these fat cat merchants got so rich selling to people with no money nor does it matter. They're the villain that needs to be straightened out by Lenin/Sadko/Sinbad.
After outsmarting the capitalists and giving away all their wares, the now brainwashed merchants are portrayed as happy only to have a smiling Lenin take one last dig, "Stupid merchants".
Sadko then embarks on a quest to spread Communism and find the "bird of happiness" only to find treacherous, warmongering, inferiors that reject enlightenment, inhabiting the outside world.
One thing I find very ironic is the racist portrayal of Indians from the supposedly enlightened Soviet Communists, the USSR having formally outlawed racism.
In the end Sinbad/Lenin/Sadko realizes that the bird of happiness (religion) does not exist and orders the ships home. They then drop their blue sails and hoist the red ones while Lenin changes from a gray cape to a crimson one, essentially wrapping himself in the Soviet flag!