To make one thing clear: all Zeman films are great! I saw them many years ago as a child and now, 25 years later, I had the luck to see them all again. They are still as good as in my memories. OK, the technical standards have moved forward since then, but good stories and fanciful images have their advantages and will be honored by today's unbiasedly viewers too. I watched another Zeman film ("Journey to the Beginning of Time") recently with my son (6 years old) - and he was excited! "The Jester's Tale" is nearly as good as all the other Zeman classics (although it can't quite reach my all-time classics "The Fabulous World of Jules Verne", "Journey to the Beginning of Time" and "Stolen Airship"). If you have the possibility to watch these films again - do it, they are worth it!

I was blown away by this film with overtones of Shakespeare's jesters. Whimsical satire, or maybe satirical whimsy - almost every scene in the film made me both laugh and think. The Director wasn't even working on a shoestring - more like dental floss - but no matter - even the stark black and white settings add lustre to this funny and wonderful film. The voter ratings overall give an accurate indication of the sheer quality of this comedic take on life.Don't miss it if it comes to your neighbourhood. I promise you you won't be disappointed...

The children's films made in the Socialist countries were just about their only productions not to be blighted by dogma. Though it's slow and it's characters are thinly etched THE JESTER'S TALE is still agreeable. The combination of live action and drawn material has style through it's lack of artifice - real troops extend the painted line, the points of the compass appear in the sky above the real horsemen. The black and white composite images remain striking.The film is the contemporary of FAN FAN LA TULIPE and shares the same enjoyable spirit as well as similar action choreography. If animator Zeman had been more at home with actors he might have made this one a more memorable venture but what he has done is still pleasant viewing.THE JESTER'S TALE makes an interesting comparison with the serious Czech historical drama HONOR AND GLORY set in the same period.

I have seen this film on Dutch television about 35 years ago and never saw it again since. So my memories about it have faded a lot, even though the film made quite an impression on me at the time. The jester tells a tale about a small boy and a small girl who go through a lot of adventures against the very grim background of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), in which Czechia suffered enormously. The movie is a clever combination of cartoon and acting, skillfully integrated. (Maybe it won't make that much impression on a contemporary public "spoiled" by modern computer simulation technics).