Korunní princ (2015)

In a flashback at the beginning of the film, King Alexander tells his young sons, Crown Prince Jan and Prince Karel, the following family story from 100 years earlier: “A wizard attacked the kingdom and kidnapped the queen—the princes’ great-great-grandmother—taking her to his castle. The king set out to rescue her, but the wizard was very powerful, with his magic wand and his abilities. So the king secretly sneaked into the castle and broke the wand. The wizard then fled to the ‘forbidden forest,’ where he is said to still live today. Anyone who goes in there is never seen again. The king had all of the wizard’s magical items brought to his own castle and locked away in a chamber that was forbidden from that moment on.” In the next scene, during the opening credits, the princes are seen fighting with wooden swords, and the younger Karel wins by cheating. The flashback ends, and we see them now as teenagers, fighting with real swords; Karel wins this time, too, by playing unfairly. Crown Prince Jan’s good nature and the younger-born Karel’s deviousness become clear. Karel refuses to accept his role as number two and plots a way to get rid of his brother without arousing suspicion, ruling out an open murder. Looking for an idea, he bribes the guards to let him into the forbidden chamber, where he finds all sorts of elixirs, including an elixir of invincibility and an elixir of forgetfulness that seems useful to him. To test it, he puts some in a wineskin and gives a guard a sip. The guard can no longer remember anything about himself. During a ride, Karel leads the crown prince to the edge of the forbidden forest. There, he gets Jan to drink from the wineskin, and Jan loses his memories (amnesia) and rides into the forest. The servant following him turns to a tree as soon as he enters the forest, though for some initially unclear reason, this does not happen to Jan. Karel rides back to the castle and tells his father, the king, with feigned horror that Jan went into the forbidden forest and disappeared. He hypocritically offers to search for him. Scene change: In the forest, by a hut. The wizard Kruciatus is in the forest with his captive gardener, cultivating a magic tree that he intends to turn into a new wand once it has grown large enough. Jan now appears, and the wizard discovers that Jan is immune to his powers because, due to his amnesia, his head is practically “empty.” Somewhat desperate, Kruciatus sends Jan away again. His servant manages to secretly break off a Y-shaped piece of the magic tree and slip it to Jan. When Jan leaves the forest and settles down for the night, he tries to put the piece of wood aside. It begins to glow, revealing its magical nature. Meanwhile, Kruciatus realizes that his tree has almost reached the required size. On his travels, Jan meets a weeping man named Cecil by a pond. Cecil tells him that his farm burned down and that his fiancée then broke off their engagement. Jan comforts him, pointing out that she probably did not really love him and must have only cared about the farm. Then, unaware of the elixir in it, he offers Cecil a sip of wine. Cecil drinks and immediately forgets his fiancée and his troubles. Suspicious of the wine’s effect, Jan cautiously dares to taste a drop himself. His memory is immediately erased again, and he consequently forgets that the wine has been mixed with the elixir and what it does. Meanwhile, Karel rides through the countryside on horseback, while his servant Pakosta has to carry the luggage on foot behind him. They reach an inn and rent a room. There, they compose a completely dishonest letter to the king, making up a heroic search for Jan. In the meantime, Cecil and Jan arrive at the place with the inn. Standing at a weaponsmith’s stall in the market there, Jan sees a black mourning carriage go by, carrying a beautiful woman who is alive but dressed entirely in mourning, and falls in love with her. He then enters the same inn where Karel is staying in an upstairs room. The landlady tells them that the beautiful woman is Princess Viktoria, who must be sacrificed to a dragon so that it will not burn down the whole country. When asked whether they have any money, Jan and Cecil realize that they have none, and Cecil offers to work off the bill instead. In the process, the landlady and Cecil fall in love. Jan decides to rescue Princess Viktoria from the dragon, quickly borrows a sword hanging on the inn’s wall, and sets off. Shortly afterward, Karel looks out of the window but no longer sees Jan, so he still does not know that Jan survived his encounter with Kruciatus in the forbidden forest. Jan enters the dragon’s cave and discovers that Viktoria is only apparently chained up. He tells her he will free her, and they both try to escape. Using the magic wood he is carrying in his breast pocket, which he holds out toward the dragon, he deflects its fiery breath and cuts off its head. Princess Viktoria falls into her rescuer’s arms and uses her handkerchief to bandage a wound on Jan’s upper arm. Karel returns to his father and regales him with his invented heroic deeds, then suggests that the succession to the throne be transferred to him, but his father refuses. Meanwhile, Viktoria and Jan reach a meadow and stop to rest. Jan offers Viktoria the wineskin so she can have a drink. Viktoria notices that it contains wine and declines. She thus narrowly avoids losing her memory. Jan goes to a spring to fetch water and, thinking the wine too good to waste, drinks some—still unaware that it contains the elixir. He immediately loses his memory again. As a result, he does not return to Viktoria and disappears while she looks for him, finding only the magic wood Jan has thrown away. Meanwhile, Jan meets three traveling journeymen, who show him a wanted poster of himself. Neither Jan nor the journeymen realize that he is the person being sought. They therefore decide to search together for the crown prince, not knowing that he is among them. Princess Viktoria reaches the castle of her father, King Filip, in the neighboring kingdom alone. There she learns that tradition dictates she marry the winner of a tournament. Hoping that Jan might appear and take part, she reluctantly agrees. Meanwhile, Jan and the journeymen reach the forbidden forest. Shortly afterward, the three journeymen disappear, leaving only their horses behind. Jan reaches the wizard Kruciatus, who is not pleased to see him, since Jan’s renewed amnesia has once again left him with an “empty head” on which magic has no effect. To finally get rid of him, Kruciatus uses magic to determine who last handled the bandage around Jan’s upper arm and discovers that it was Princess Viktoria. Since Jan is once again drawn to Viktoria, Kruciatus gives him a badly rusted suit of armor and sends him in the right direction toward Viktoria’s castle. The wineskin containing the wine mixed with the elixir of forgetfulness remains with Kruciatus. In the meantime, Karel has heard about the upcoming tournament and goes to the castle where it is to be held. To guarantee that he wins, he picks up the bottle of the elixir of invincibility and reads the label: “Do not take internally!” So he pours some onto the tip of his lance, making it indestructibly hard. Meanwhile, Jan rides past Cecil’s inn in full armor. Cecil recognizes that the knight is carrying the sword from the inn’s wall and follows him. Jan reaches the castle of Viktoria’s father, King Filip, just in time to enter the tournament. His amnesia and rusty armor prompt ironic jokes. The tournament begins. Since she knows nothing of Jan, who provisionally calls himself “Lavice” (German for “bench”), Viktoria does not want to watch. With the help of his enchanted lance, Karel sweeps aside his first opponent and, confident of victory, does not bother to watch the other bouts. As a result, he also fails to recognize his brother when Jan defeats his own opponents, since the elixir of amnesia erased his memory but not his learned skill at tournament combat. After several rounds, Viktoria decides to attend the end of the tournament after all. Karel sits down beside “Lavice” on a bench and suddenly recognizes his brother Jan, whom he had thought missing. But because of his amnesia, Jan cannot recognize Karel as his brother; he does not even know that he is a crown prince. First, “Lavice”—still in full armor and therefore unrecognizable—has to defeat another opponent. Once he has done so, he stands before Princess Viktoria and removes his helmet. Viktoria now realizes that the man before her is the rescuer who disappeared after killing the dragon: a heroic deed Jan does not remember because of his third bout of amnesia. When they face one another in the castle, he therefore denies killing the dragon, even as Viktoria wants to marry him without waiting for the tournament. Karel also argues against it, so the king decides that the final match between Jan and Karel will settle the matter. Viktoria notices that Karel takes his lance to his room. Suspicious, she sneaks in and finds the bottle of the elixir of invincibility. Before she can examine any other bottles, Karel appears and she hides under the bed. From there, she overhears Karel speaking with his servant Pakosta and learns the whole plot. Her attempt to convince her father, the king, that Karel has been using dishonest methods fails, and the bottle of the elixir of invincibility breaks. So the fight takes place between Karel and his brother Jan, who is still suffering from amnesia. Jan, alias “Lavice,” is given a new suit of armor and a shield instead of his rusty armor, with the Y-shaped magic wood attached to it. When they clash, Karel’s lance breaks into many pieces just behind the hardened section. The fight continues with swords, and Jan wins without killing Karel. Immediately after this victory, King Alexander—Karel and Jan’s father—arrives. Viktoria tells him about Karel’s plot against Jan and shows him a shard of the broken bottle as proof. In the forbidden forest, the wizard Kruciatus realizes that the magic tree has now grown large enough to carve a new wand from it. He has it cut down, and shortly afterward he is holding his new wand and swearing revenge. He sends his gardener into the hut to fetch his amulet. There, the gardener finds the wineskin, and only Kruciatus calling out to him prevents him from drinking from it. Kruciatus takes the wineskin and drinks it dry. He immediately loses his memory and his magical powers. The effects of all his previous spells are undone: the chain holding his gardener vanishes into thin air, and the people who had been turned into trees come back to life. The gardener takes the wand and shreds it into tiny pieces to prevent further harm once and for all. Viktoria and Jan, who come to visit the two men, invite Kruciatus and his gardener to their wedding. Everyone is seen together at the banquet. After a few witty exchanges, the two villains, Karel and Pakosta, who have had some of the food, are led away. King Alexander carefully locks the forbidden chamber again, and the film ends happily with a celebratory scene for the newlyweds and the planting of the magic wood, which immediately begins to grow.