It's safe to say that from the first 20 minutes I knew it was not exactly my type of movie. If I were a director I could hardly shoot like this. I could not combine sadistic cruelty with a fairy tale. (It's interesting if the film will get changed in order to allow younger audience.)

But it's also safe to admit that the impression, left by the film, was immense. Del Toro directs with a bold hand, he doesn't lose time, guns shoot and knifes strike without too much sentiments preceeding. Actors do a good job, especially the young girl and one of the European best - Sergi Lopez - the protagonist and the antagonist of the story, we may say. Lopez plays a complete villain here. Maybe, his character is portrayed this way, because the director doesn't want us to feel anything except hate towards him. Showing the settings this way also makes us sense that nothing good is likely to happen to the characters of the movie, and if it will - then only by the price of a sacrifice. One can even take some details of the film's mythology and associate the the girl with the Christ-like figures in literature.

As for the magic part of the story, the viewer is free to decide for himself whether it happens really or only in the imagination of the girl.

Challenges and monsters of the real world undergo transformation into the fairy world indirectly, almost unrecognizably. It's important that the girl doesn't see the most horrible events that are happenning around. The reality, that she sees, forms the tale for the girl; but also the tale not only reflects, but changes the reality, bringing tragic ending to some lives, but salvation and hope to the other. Also, it's interesting that some events in the real world happen later than similar challenges in the imaginary one; so the imaginary world kind of prepares the character for the real world situations. They say, by the way, that, when we sleep, our dreams serve the very same purpose. In the climax of the movie the reality and the imaginary world collide.

Despite all the cruelty, it looks like Del Toro is a great humanist. The consequence of events concludes in saving one innocent life in the end.

Guillermo Del Toro happened to be a very nice person in close encounter. He stayed for about an hour after the end of the screening to talk to movie fans and sign autographs. For EVERY fan, when signing, he was also drawing a caricature portrait of himself. His talk has to be censored, though, in order to meet PG-13 criteria, too.

Ron Perlman (The Hellboy) was present at the theatre, he and Del Toro had some plans together, evidently, - so he waited patiently and gave autographs, as well.

I asked him, if he remembered working in Police Acadamy in Moscow. He replied that he remembered, not looking very pleased, though. But when I told him that Police Academy was one of the first American movies I saw in the Soviet Union, he said with a laugh: "Oh, you're from there!" - and proceeded being in a good mood. He was indeed a recognizable actor at those times. Some girls, though, didn't recognize him and when Del Toro asked if they want him to join the picture, thay said "no". The next person to take pictures wanted Ron Perlman in, and so Ron Perlman remarked in a perfectly hellboyish tone: "Finally, somebody wants me"