These days, my mind is filled with sadness because all my efforts at Wikimedia have been destroyed by ill-intentioned persons, and it's also disheartening because they are all Vietnamese like me. (They have lived in the United States since childhood and are not even fluent in Vietnamese, yet they abuse their power to impose their ignorance on knowledge of Vietnamese culture and history, while I have no authority to speak up) However, c'est la vie, you try to build a beautiful house, but someone can still tear it down just because they don't like you, not because they don't need the house. I suddenly remembered The Gnomes and the Mountain King (Гномы и горный король), a cinematic masterpiece that I uploaded to the English-Wikipedia a few years ago and which was also deleted in the worst possible way.

The story is about a boy who accidentally discovers a cave where many ancient gods reside. It is similar to East Asian myths about humans marrying animals. For example : Bees, butterflies, goats... That cave or animal world is actually a representation of the voice of the soul, which is always innocent and truthfuf, and at the same time, always in contrast to harsh reality. But in any case, we all have to face reality. That's also why the boy had to leave the cave, or why the young man in my story had to return home after 300 years wandering in the world of fairies.

In the terrifying story of the Estonian pagans, the dragon is a force hindering evolution, which is manifested through love. However, as far as I know, the dragon or exactly the toad is also the ancients' surreal representation of volcanic craters, which served as an insurmountable threat (you know, volcanoes can erupt at any time, so every time one awakens, all human efforts are destroyed). But in any case, the ending of the Eastern European story was not as tragic as that of the Vietnamese. I'll tell you now!

In the past, people in Southeast Asia used to chew a mixture similar to chewing gum to protect their teeth, although a side effect was that it stained their teeth black (hence, black teeth were once a beauty standard). The mixture consisted of betel leaves, areca nuts (related to coconuts, but their fruit is only as small as a lemon), and quicklime. These three ingredients, when combined, created a blood-red dye, but prolonged use would leave teeth a glossy black color. After Western colonial rule, most Southeast Asians abandoned this practice, so it is now only found among the elderly. It's worth adding that this mixture can be addictive. That's why there's a very good short story from a Vietnamese person living in Eastern Europe, who recounts meeting an old woman whom had moved to Eastern Europe with her son, and because she missed that mixture so much, she had to chew gum to ease her craving. The story ends with the author bidding farewell to the old woman before returning to Vietnam; she sheds tears of homesickness. Back to the story:

A young man came to a family to ask for their daughter's hand in marriage. He sat for a while, then suddenly dropped dead. The girl was the only person near him when the accident occurred, so she was detained by local officials for questioning. The maiden testified that she only had time to pick betel leaves from the garden and offer them to the victim before he died. The official was unable to determine the cause, so the girl was declared innocent. Some time later, that official was replaced by someone else, and the incident continued to repeat itself without any evidence. Many young men in the village had died, causing the girl to be feared and shunned by everyone. A few years later, an official known for his erudition was appointed. He carefully examined the limestone beneath the betel plant, as he suspected it might contain some kind of poison. However, when he accidentally broke the rock, he discovered a small cave underneath, and inside the cave was a giant toad. That toad would often crawl out of its burrow at night to lick the dew drops on betel leaves, and that's why the young men died after chewing these leaves. Therefore, the official ordered that from then on, all villagers must cut off the top part of the betel leaf before using it. This custom has spread throughout the country and become a tradition passed down through generations.

Mykola Hohol's seemingly horrific story is actually a subtle way of expressing the psychophysiological development inside the female body, or more accurately, the issue of hormones. First, why does a maiden transform into an old woman? Next, why does the girl die during the day and come back to life at night? Finally, why does she befriend a demon, or more precisely, animal genitalia? Once you understand these issues, you will know why the seminarian said: "In Kyiv, all grannies in the market-place are witches".

Now you'll have a clue to unraveling the story. A different way of telling it, typical of Vietnamese storytelling, but with a more optimistic ending. A student was on his way to the capital to take an exam when it got dark. He asked to stay at an old man's house, whose daughter had been lying motionless for three days. The student accidentally discovered that three demons had possessed the girl's body to prevent their own souls from dissipating. The young man used his knowledge to drive away the demons and restore the girl's health. What happened next is probably something everyone can guess.

Watch : 1 2 3

From my days of the university, I learned that Hohol was immersed in folklore from a young age, something not everyone has the opportunity to experience. His stories often mock women, like this one. Let me explain!

Mykola Hohol likely relied on a very familiar motif from the lower Eastern culture to lead us into a love adventure. According to Asian beliefs, or rather, from Indian civilization, lunar eclipses are often explained as a demon swallowing the moon. The moon has always been associated with the beauty of the female body: A full moon could represent pregnancy, or the physiological maturation of a woman, things that were difficult to explain in Hohol's time. Therefore, the devil represents the desires of all the villagers. Why did the men flock to Solokha's house? Why did Oksana, despite being in love with Vakula (whom wasn't actually handsome, just strong), still demand such a high dowry (if not an impossible one)? And why did Vakula force the devil to take him to the capital citadel (even though that's unlikely to happen in a single day)?

If you can answer at least these three questions, I believe you'll have a good laugh after watching the whole film.

I remember seeing this when I was younger on UK TV and it stuck with me since then. I've just rewatched it all and it's as good, if not better than I remembered it to be. The animation is stunning and although there's a roughness to the characters there's such fluidity in the movement. The music is also exceptional. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

Operator: Violetta Karosanidze.

A rare film from Georgia Film's 1960s period, during which the studio was transitioning from the Stalinist to the post-Stalinist era. This period seems to be more poorly attested that the ones before or after... for example, this film seems to survive only in black & white (though I assume it was originally in colour). So far, this is the only Georgian cartoon from this period on the site, and might be one of their earliest puppet films. At around the same time, puppet films began to be created in other Soviet animation studios as well. Also, unlike all the earlier Georgian cartoons I've seen, this one doesn't have fantastical elements (well... except for the doctor somehow managing to re-attach the boy's leg after it has been ripped clean off!)

The 1965 date (which I've only found on the Arjlover forum) does seem more likely than the 1958 date which is almost everywhere else online, given that Sulakauri's biography says that he began to direct in 1964, and there is conspicuously a missing film in 1965. Still, it would be nice to see some more evidence...

Travancore originated from a misreading by the British when they first arrived in Thiruvithamkoor Kingdom [t̪iɾuʋid̪aːŋɡuːr], in what is now the Indian state of Kerala. The real meaning of the story is the origin of the formation of the universe. Asians believe that all things were created by the endless struggle of forces in the universe. However, that does not mean that Indians worship violence and war, but it explains that the universe would die if it remained in a state of inactivity.

This poem belongs to a genre that Vietnamese people often call "vè" (an onomatopoeic and almost meaningless word, it always begins every poem : Ve vẻ vè ve). It always rhymes and is repeated to help children practice their enunciation.

One of those really sweet Soviet cartoons that were made to encourage children to be kind.

By the way, I had to do some odd adjusting of the existing subtitles for the new video link. I'm going to detail the process below both as a reference for myself in the future, and to help others do the same if needed.

So, first I found two lines of dialogue near the beginning and the end that could be directly compared:
Line 1 at 01:29,500 in the old video is heard at 01:26,500 in the new video.
Line 2 at 05:19,500 in the old video is heard at 05:11,000 in the new video.

Assuming m = multiplier and o = offset, and converting the times to seconds, one gets two equations ("new" time is to the left of the equal sign):
86.5 = (m * 89.5) + o
311 = (m * 319.5) + o

Now to find the multiplier:
(311 - 86.5) = m * (319.5 - 89.5)
224.5 = m * 230
m = 224.5/230 = 0.9761 (roughly) = 24.4/25 (roughly)

And finally to find the offset (using either one of those two equations):
86.5 = (0.9761 * 89.5) + o
86.5 = 87.3 + o
o = -0.8 seconds

Just to double-check, I also found a place in the middle (at around 3:11 in the new video), and the dialogue matches there as well. Sometimes this method doesn't work very well because a bit of footage has been cut out in one of the versions (some theatres used to remove damaged sections, so the film would suddenly jump), but even then it's usually possible to get away with it.

So apparently the new video runs almost half a frame-per-second faster than the old one, although both are supposedly 25 frames per second. I have no idea what's going on here, but at least everything is synced now, without having to redo all the old subtitles (which I try to avoid if possible - I prefer to update them only for textual changes, not simply for a slightly differently-timed version of a film. Otherwise we'd have to update everything far too frequently).