Why so much hype?

Blistering performances.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

"Gusi-lebedi" or "Geese Swans" is an 18-minute (at least the version I saw) cartoon from 1949. If you read the names Ivan Ivanov-Vano and Aleksandra Snezhko-Blotskaya who made this one, you will know immediately that this is an animated movie. And a pretty good one. I think it needed a little while to get going, but the sequences towards the end with the two children and the witch were a pretty exciting watch. The animation is also convincing for almost 70 years ago and pretty much on par with what Americans did during that time (Disney and Warner Bros.). And this film has a hedgehog, which is a personal plus with me as I love this animal, even if he does not really have that much screen time. All in all, a good watch with some dramatic moments and a good story. I recommend you to check it out.

One of the greatest fairytale animations of it's era. In a classic fairytale structure, somewhere in between the Grimm fairy tales "Hansl & Gretl" ( Witch wanting to eat the brother) and "Frau Holle" (Girl getting rewarded for helping an oven, an apple-tree etc.)Left in charge of her little brother as her parents go to town, Mashenka leaves him alone for a little while to play with her friends. The little boy get's abducted by a group of geese-swans in service of the witch Baba-Yaga Mashenka set's out to free him, and receives help from an oven, a brook, an apple-tree and later a hedgehogThe IMDb wrongly credits Ivan Ivanov-Vano for the co-direction, but it's co-directed by Albert Ivanov, next to Alexandra Snezhko-Blotskaya. Unfortunately the IMDb is very incomplete and unreliable for Russian animation. Ivan was working at " The stranger's voice" at the time.See http://www.animator.ru/db/?ver=eng&p=show_film&fid=2982. for the correct credits.