Name: Castillo
Production: Madbox Filmtrick, ZDF - Germany
Year: 1997
DVD Release Date: August 29, 2006
Genre: Stop motion puppets animation
Rated: General
Running time: 25 min.
Number of episodes: 26 (total for seasons 1 & 2)

Dragon Contents:

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R a t i n g :

This rating indicates how good or how bad was the movie/game/episodes reviewed. A rating of 5 stars on 10 is considered as the average which mean it is not good but not bad either.

In 1998, Mad Box from Germany created a great serie using stop motion puppets called Castillo - Ein Drache mischt das Mittelalter auf (roughtly translated as Castillo - A dragon mixes up the Middle Ages, or just plain Castillo). The first season aired successfully and the series was sold into 17 different countries.

In the Hanau film studio near Frankfurt, Castillo and his friends were brought to life on over 700 square meters of work space. The shooting was done entirely old school and the team had set out to complete 1.5 minutes of film every day. To do this, three sets were shot at the same time. Work was carried out with two 35mm cameras and a digital camera. 40 different indoor and outdoor sets were built for the series - all of them handcrafted. The doll makers built a total of 70 dolls for Castillo; they were made of latex, which is a kind of rubber and all dolls had steel fittings. There were, for example, five copies of Castillo himself that were constantly in use which sometimes resulted that he had to see a puppet doctor after a hard day of shooting.

There was 2 seasons produced, each containing 13 episodes. In 2006, three DVDs were released in English (and Spanish); Castillo in the Great Ball of Fire, Castillo in the Incredible Shrinking Duke and Castillo in Mission: Mouse. These DVDs contain all the episodes from season 2. Unfortunately, episodes from season 1 don't seem to be available anywhere.


Story line:
Castillo relate the story of a young dragon of the Middle Ages whose curiosity, imagination and inventiveness bring him in a countless of misadventures. From his stone castle of the present time, the now older Castillo tells us the merry stories from its youth.

While these episodes target the young audience out there, I must admit that the episodes contain positive and imaginative ways to face problems; in each episode Castillo faces a difficulty and end up in inventing something to get across it. It is not surprising to see Castillo's works become the frame of some discoveries the humanity made.

Castillo background story is quite simple; the innkeeper (she is called The Landlady) of a small village found his egg in the forest and decided to adopt and raise him. The young Castillo does not have wings but the older one does. The writers explain this as a maturation process when the wings of a dragon grow up when they reach puberty; this a rather innovative concept about dragons' biology.


Images:
Despite that the characters are in fact puppets, their movements remain fluid and expressive. The details are not extremely high but remain good enough to not see any serious glitches (remember that each character make about 6 inch high). The style of the episodes is quite special since there are things that appear on purpose and create anachronism for the sake of story. And yes, Doloress has a zipper on her chest and she is wearing shoes despite that she is a bird... it add some humorous elements in the episodes.


Sound & Music
Often episodes have a song somewhere (especially in season 1), some songs are nice but some others, not so much. The songs usually quite short so like it or not, it is not a major aspect of the episodes. Beside that, the voices are clear and are appropriate for the type of character they represent.