In a hospital on the outskirts of 1920s Los Angeles, an injured stuntman begins to tell a fellow patient, a little girl with a broken arm, a fantastic story about 5 mythical heroes. Thanks to his fractured state of mind and her vivid imagination, the line between fiction and reality starts to blur as the tale advances.
Cinematography
No CGI — every surreal landscape is real locations, real light, real magic.
Acting
Lee Pace weaponizes charm, then weaponizes despair. Catinca Untaru is devastatingly real.
Direction
Tarsem spent his own fortune to keep final cut. The obsession shows.
Director
Tarsem Singh
Lee Pace
Roy Walker
Justine Waddell
Nurse Evelyn / Sister Evelyn
Daniel Caltagirone
Sinclair / Governor Odious
Leo Bill
Darwin / Orderly
Sean Gilder
Walt Purdy
Julian Bleach
Mystic / Orange Picker
Marcus Wesley
Otta Benga / Ice Delivery Man
Robin Smith
Luigi / One Legged Actor
Jeetu Verma
Indian / Orange Picker
Catinca Untaru
Alexandria
Kim Uylenbroek
Doctor / Alexander the Great
Aiden Lithgow
Alexander's Messenger
Ronald France
Otto
Emil Hostina
Alexandria's Father / Bandit
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Catinca Untaru (6 years old, non-actor) didn't know Lee Pace could walk until filming wrapped — her reactions to his 'paralysis' are genuine.
This is a loose remake of 1981 Bulgarian film 'Yo Ho Ho,' but Tarsem replaced its communist allegory with pure visual poetry and personal bankruptcy.
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