I'm really glad I could finally bring this one here. I've wanted to do it for a while, but the film is so wordy and the existing translations so problematic that it took longer than I'd hoped.

I think the film has somewhat odd pacing (it feels like the climax comes early, and there's a long "afterword" which explains what happened earlier), and I think the sketchy dream-sections aren't drawn as appealingly as the main part, but it nevertheless is quite funny and brilliant. All of the scenes from the "present-day" with the main villain in particular are excellent.

The director was feeling burned out after he finished it (and no wonder!), but soon found himself writing another "Holmes" script that ended up with perhaps enough material for a feature film. It was to be called "Королевские игрушки" ("King's Toys", or "Royal Toys"). He seemed quite excited about it and production was due to start in 2014.

So what happened? I have to read between the lines a bit, but I suspect the Maidan and the start of the Ukrainian/Russian conflict in 2014 had something to do with it. The first two "Holmes" movies were in Russian, and it seems that the new one was planned to be a major Russian-language project made mostly by a Ukrainian studio. Since 2014, that combination has become untenable on both sides of the border, and even more so since 2022. Aleksandr Bubnov is 65, currently lives in Kyiv/Kiev and is still active on his YouTube channel. People often leave comments praising his Holmes films and asking for a sequel, and he often replies thanking them, but saying that he doubts it will ever get made and that the current situation makes it completely impossible.

On a not-completely-unrelated note, Boris Bubnov is probably his son, and is credited with drawing/animating the dream sequences here.