Designated Hero: Sadko may be a gifted singer, but he is an absolutely despicable human being. He is abusive towards his loving and patient wife Lyubava, is ready to cheat on her with Volkhova the instant he sees the latter, and is prepared to leave her for Volkhova entirely (despite knowing that, as an orphan, Lyubava will absolutely depend on the mercy of strangers if she is effectively left a widow). In the underwater kingdom, Sadko doesn't care a straw that his wedding feast causes terrible storms and floods with multiple casualties on the water surface. Then, after the Ancient finally commands him to return home, Sadko doesn't care (again) that Volkhova, whom he proclaimed to love only minutes earlier, is turned into a river forever, praises the Ancient for stopping the Sea-King's feast while neglecting to mention the actual cause of it, and returns to his wife without so much as a word of apology for how he treated her earlier.
The song Sinbadko plays for Lord Neptune in his undersea kingdom. Really, the entire 'undersea kingdom' portion of the film could qualify. (It makes marginally more sense in the original Russian version; Sadko is asked to perform a song for the undersea kingdom because he is foremost a wandering minstrel, not a sailor, but the musical numbers which help to establish this are largely cut from the English dub.)
The bizarre "Channel Cat" is a straighter example.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Sadko's name was changed to Sinbad to cover up the fact that the film was a Soviet production based on Russian legends (American audiences would likely have no idea who Sadko was, but Sinbad had been the subject of several American films already). Trying to paste Middle Eastern names and culture over it made it ostensibly more American-friendly in the Cold War era, when anything Russian was dangerously un-American. Fast-forward to the 21th century, the opposite happened: Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas by Dreamworks Animation was adapted into a vaguely Greco-Roman setting because in the climate of The War on Terror producers were afraid of releasing a movie with an Arab/Muslim as protagonist.
When the writers of Mystery Science Theater 3000 say that the special effects are great and the film is beautifully shot, that's some high praise.
In particular, the Bird of Happiness is quite well-done. It remains just on the right side of the Unintentional Uncanny Valley to be believable.
What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: The film is a subtle attack on capitalism and religion. Well, not so subtle. That said, it also works as an attack on pie-in-the-sky ideas of wealth redistribution (see the Artistic License – Economics entry for details).
