Sheep and Wolves

A sheep named Ziko is attempting to document the outdoor wildlife, when he stumbles upon the wolf Grey, and flees screaming back to his village of sheep, located near a newly arrived pack of wolves in the rocky mountains. The wise leader of the wolf pack, Magra, announces that he'll retire soon, and that two candidates must fight for the rite of succession. One is Ragear, a bad-tempered, selfish wolf who disregards Magra's values for all life, including prey. The other is Grey, who is in love with the beautiful she-wolf Bianca. However, he acts like a joker, never taking anything seriously, much to Bianca's chagrin. After Grey humiliates Ragear for disobeying Magra's orders, he then encounters the little lamb Shia, who disobeyed his older sister Lyra by wandering into the meadow. Grey nevertheless lets Shia go unharmed.

During a celebration at the wolf pack, Grey humiliates Ragear further, which causes Bianca to end her relationship with him, citing that he's still too immature to be the next leader. Grey visits a gypsy camp celebration, and meets the eccentric hare Mami. She gives Grey a transmutation potion, which he hopes will make him change so Bianca will love him again. However, he transforms into a ram. Fleeing from his former pack mates, Grey gets knocked out, only to wake up in the sheep village under Lyra's care.

Grey struggles to cope with being a ram. At first, he tries to convince himself that he's only dreaming, but accepts the truth, until he remembers that it was Mami who gave him a potion. Finding the gypsy camp deserted, he returns to the sheep village. The wolf pack believes that Grey ran away, scared to fight Ragear.

The next morning, Grey is invited by Shia and the talkative Moz to attend the tournament. When Grey finds himself fighting the champion Louis the Fierce, he resorts to biting, which angers everyone. Grey soon earns the friendship of the herd afterwards when he protects Lyra and Shia from two wolves. At a welcome party, Grey foolishly inspires Shia to go fight wolves, but the lamb is captured by Ragear, but after witnessing him murder Magra and take over the wolf pack. Grey and Moz rescue Shia, but Ragear is informed that Grey has been turned into a ram. He incites the pack to kill all the sheep in the village.

Feeling lonely, Grey returns to the mountains, where he encounters Bianca, who tells him of Ragear's takeover and Magra's death (though unaware that Ragear killed him). He is photographed by Ziko, who then informs the village that Grey is a spy for the wolves. Grey furiously leaves the village, but Shia recognises him as the wolf who spared his life in the meadow. Grey nevertheless leaves, until he is discovered by Mami. The hare informs him that the wolf pack will attack the village, but Grey can transform back to a wolf if he reaches a certain tree by noon the following day. Grey nevertheless returns to the village to warn the flock. He encourages them to fight back.

The next morning, the wolf pack is thwarted by various traps and defences, until they chase the sheep into a cave, only to be sealed inside with water flooding in. Not wishing his pack to drown, Grey saves the pack, only for Ragear to seize Shia. The lamb reveals that Ragear was responsible for Magra's death, and Grey challenges Ragear to a fight for leadership. Mami and Bianca arrives to give Grey the potion to turn him back to a wolf, but nothing happens. Continuing to fight Ragear, Grey is brutally attacked and buried under a pile of rocks, only to emerge as a wolf, sending Ragear falling over a waterfall.

Humbled and having learned maturity while as a ram, Grey proposes to Bianca and they are married in the sheep village, the wolf pack and the sheep herd living together in peace. Nearby, Mami explains that the potion she and Bianca gave Grey was just spring water, and his transformation came from having learned responsibility. She looks on as the village of sheep and wolves celebrate their new united community.

The story of Sheep and Wolves was inspired by elements of the German fairy tale The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids and the concepts of a wolf in sheep's clothing; director Maxim Volkov explained that the staff at Wizart conceived a film of showcasing these ideas using a body-exchange story formula used in many popular comedy stories, describing it as a "funny and kind" idea to show to all viewers.[8] The film features messages about friendship and how to properly deal with another group of people who are against a certain group.[9] Volkov describe the sheep in the film as elves or hobbits and the wolves as warlike nomads: "It was important for us to create a contrast, since the protagonist turns from a wolf into a ram, and, therefore, acquires the qualities of another "people" and loses traits peculiar to wolves."[9]

According to a writer for Expert magazine, many film viewers noticed similarities between the plots of Sheep and Wolves and another Russian animated film that was released in Russian theaters in March 2016 named Kikoriki. Legend of the Golden Dragon (2016).[10] Kikoriki. Legend of the Golden Dragon involves its protagonist Barash transforming into a caterpillar by wearing a helmet invented by a scientist at Kikoriki Island.[10] The Expert journalist both noted identical messages between the two films about a person not being himself to the point of not recognizing who he really is.[10] The only difference these two films had in their content was the relationship aspects between characters. As the journalist analyzed, "Unlike the Smeshariki, where the personal relationships between the almost sexless heroes have already been established, the Romantic line is clearly drawn in the Wolves and the Sheep: the main character - Wolf Gray is not very clever trying to attract the attention of the wolf Bianchi - this is one of the obstacles that He has to overcome in a duel with himself."[10]

Sheep and Wolves took five years to make[10][7] and was produced on a budget of 230 million rubles by around 200 people from several countries.[7] The film went through around three months of pre-production, its screenplay taking more than two years to write; American Neil Landau, who had previously seen Wizart's film The Snow Queen and met Sheep and Wolves's Vladimir Nikolaev at a film festival, joined the company to help write the film.[11] It was produced in Voronezh with collaborations from several nations such as New Zealand, India, and United States production companies.[7] As with Wizart's Snow Queen 2,[11] work on the film's audio took place in New Zealand and Scotland, with music for the film by a composer from France.[7] Production of the film consisted of around 15 to 17 departments, each containing five to twelve people.[11] The film went through several redraws and rewrites in terms of animation style and story.[7]

Sheep and Wolves was Wizart's production that involved the animators having to deal with controlling the wool for the characters the most.[12] Volkov explained that "working with wool took a lot of time and became a serious test of the professionalism of our animators."[12] The characters with "straight" hair had only two layers of fur, while figures with woolly hair was made up of many layers.[12] Thus, the scenes that regard the wolf pack were produced first.[4] How much wool a character had in a certain shot was determined by how far he or she was away from the camera in order to achieve an "organic" look.[12] Volkov described the tournament scene, with consisted of 1,300 sheep figures, as the most difficult to animate.[12] The smoothness of Cliff's feather was another part of the animation labeled by the Volkov as hard to work with.[12] All of the animators watched animal behavior and nature as reference to make the film look realistic.[12] Programmers from Ireland were hired to watch how plants and trees grow and program those movements for the film.[12]

The lip movements of the characters were animated based on the English dub of the film.[10] This was noticed and praised in a review of the film by Russian publication Weburg.[13]

Sheep and Wolves features references to several films and media:

• The wolf and sheep groups are a reference to the Roman and Gaul groups in the comic book series Asterix.[14]
• Grey's species transformation references Queen Elinor turning into a bear after eating a cake in the film Brave (2012).[14]
• When Grey takes the potion, he keeps changing into several different animals at a rapid rate, one of them being the troll Orma from Wizart's Snow Queen films.[11]
• Weburg described a scene from the film as a reference to 300 (2007), the wolves of the film being similar to Persians.[13]

A pre-screening of Sheep and Wolves took place in the Voronezh-based theater Star & Mlad on 23 April 2016; the government of Voronezh assisted in having children from eight boarding schools to attend.[7] One of the most anticipated films in Russian cinema in 2016 according to Russia-24,[15] Sheep and Wolves made its official Russian theatrical premiere on 28 April 2016.[7]

Sheep & Wolves had a theatrical run in Norway by the company Storytelling Media and was the first Russian independent animated film to have a Norwegian theatrical release.[16] Koch Media issued the film for home media consumption in the nations Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and South Tyrol.[16] ADS Service released the film in Hungary,[16] Spentzos Film distributed it in Greece,[17] KLB released it in France,[17] PT.Satuvisi Abadi distributed it and Wizart's The Snow Queen 3 in Indonesia,[17] Flame Node Entertainment and Alibaba Pictures Group released the film in Chinese theaters,[18] and BoXoo Entertainment released it in South Korea.[17]

PRO FILMS released the film in Bulgaria. Company leader Emil Simeonov recalled the marketing campaign that took place in the nation for the film as "massive, we had four of the top 20 most popular singers and actors involved and we covered every channel I know, even a few communication channels I'd heard of for the first time."[19]

The film ran at the 2016 Russian Film Week in London. Festival Filip Perkon said that animated films like Sheep and Wolves would be the easiest Russian films to reaching audiences from across the globe.[20] The film was also played at the Cannes Film Festival,[21] Annecy International Animated Film Festival,[22] "and the Oaxaca FilmFest.[23]

In Russia, with the film opening at 1892 theaters in its first week,[24] Sheep and Wolves debuted at number two, grossing 46,720,975 rubles[2] and attracting more than 234,000 viewers.[24] The film grossed a total of 138,792,038 rubles throughout its entire 19-week Russian run.[2] In Lithuania, the film made 1,449.39 euros on its first week and began at number 16 in the nation's box office.[25] By the next week, the film topped the Lithuania box office and grossed 19,476.08 more euros.[25] The film also ranked in the top ten of the box offices of other countries such as Poland,[26] Romania,[27] Slovenia,[28] and Turkey.[29] Despite this, however, the film grossed a worldwide amount of 217,299,268.02 rubles,[2] not making it to its production budget amount of 230 million rubles.

Sheep and Wolves received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics. A reviewer from imdb, scoring the film a seven out of ten, compared it to Kung Fu Panda (2008). The critic said the children would enjoy its humor and story and the adults its references to other films.[13]

Olivier Bachelard, writing for the French source Abus de Cine, praised the film's visuals, highlighting its "fluid" animation and "impressive" use of colors, and wrote that young viewers would enjoy the story. However, he also disliked its "useless" scenes, "somewhat disappointing" characters, and the character designs, describing them as "dressed in grotesque hairstyles."[30]

Russian-speaking critics note in the cartoon a straightforward, but clearly structured plot, a thorough study of the characters and the comparative identity of the project [18] [20] [22] . In his review, Boris Ivanov praised the picture for a decent level for Russian cinema , its graphics and animation, although there were some shortcomings in directing, expressed in a lack of dimensionality in the narrative, Ivanov also refers to the weaknesses of the animated film with frequent borrowings, secondary characters and some jokes , the triviality of the main scripted idea of the friendship of herbivores with carnivores [22]. The development of the action is rapid, because of which it is not always possible to feel important scenes that are not given due attention in terms of emotional saturation, the narrative is crumpled, which is especially felt at the beginning of the picture [22] . Alexey Mazhaev notes that the cartoon is at the level of Western animation patterns, although the amount of adult humor and drama in the tape is less than in similar films by DreamWorks and Walt Disney Pictures [14] . Mazhaev notes that the animals in the animated film are at a rather high civilized level, and the lack of elaboration by the scriptwriters of the crazy transformations from a wolf into a ram and vice versa “gives the plot a kind of absurd charm” [14]. “Wolves and sheep” convincingly show the superiority of good over evil, without slipping into moralizing [14] . Despite five years of work on the film, it did not come out as good as the animation from Disney [14] . Kirill Ilyukhin also believes the plot of the film is not original, but amusing and interesting to the main target audience - children [24] . According to Ilyukhin, the plot with the hackneyed topic of transformation for the sake of looking at the world from a different angle is the weak point of the picture [24] . Olesya Troshina claims that the animation of “Wolves and Sheep” is not bad, but not without flaws and roughness, and the drawing of animals in the tape, although it does not reach the level of “ Zeropolis, ” is attentive to details[20] . Landscapes, however, are colorful and look good [20] . In the script you can see references to such works as The Lion King , 300 Spartans , Shrek , Hedgehog in the Fog , and paintings by Salvador Dali [14] [20] [24] .

The animated film was in the top of the most anticipated premieres of Russian cinema in 2016 [33] . In addition to Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union , the cartoon was released in the Middle East , in Mongolia, Turkey and Romania, it is also planned to be shown in Italy, Spain, China and Poland [9] [33] [34] . According to producer Yuri Moskvin of Wizart Animation, who signed a contract with Flame Node and the Alibaba Group to promote the painting, the Chinese market is key for the rental of Wolves and Sheep, the show plans to reach the widest audience [28] [32] [35] . In the version of the cartoon for the Chinese rental, dialogs and songs are partially changed[25] [26] . The release of the cartoon "Wolves and Sheep: Crazy Transformation" in China is expected in late summer 2016 [35] . Negotiations are underway with studios in the United States and Great Britain for display in these countries [28] [35] . On Kinopoisk “Wolves and Sheeps: Bez-e-zumny Transformation” has a rating of 6.8 out of 10, on IMDb - 5.7 out of 10. In the first week of Russian distribution, the cartoon “Wolves and Sheep” entered the top three by cash fees, and also became one of the most successful Russian projects in the international box office in 2016 [32] [36] [37] . However, the site kinometro.ru considers the start of movie rental is not very successful: for the first four days of rental, the picture was collected inCIS 49.7 million rubles, while analysts predicted more than one hundred million rubles of collection [38] . Abroad, the picture took third place in the Bulgarian box office, collecting 33 thousand euros over the first weekend [39] .

Sheep & Wolves was nominated for 5 awards, including Best Animation Feature Film.[31]

In an April 2016 interview, Yuri Moskvin revealed that the company began a script for a sequel of the film planned for release in 2018.[7] In May 2016, NIkolaev revealed that a sequel has been in development since October 2015; he revealed that it will be produced by the same team as the first film and is expected to come out in the spring of 2018.[11]

It was released in Russia in January 2019, and was a great critical in kinopoisk, it is on the third highest grossing film in bulgaria in end 2019.

In Late 2019 to 2020, it was rumored that a third Sheep and Wolves movie might release in 2021 or 2022.

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