Plot

The story of Beauty and the beast.

There is only one way to break the spell which has turned the prince into a horrible beast: a beautiful girl has to fall in love with the creature. As time is running out, the beast abducts the girl Elsa and takes her prisoner. He puts all his efforts into charming the girl. Elsa does not accept her fate, and the beast is not at all a gentleman with fine manners. The transformative power of love, which frees Elsa of her feelings of guilt towards her parents and which returns the beast to his former humanity, is at the heart of the film. Aimed at a family audience, the film's eerie scenes are balanced with humor and poetry.

Widower publican Hugo may be an eternal optimist, after his lord, knight Bertold, runs him over so as to wreck most of his wine, then announces his steward is about to collect backward rent, while inviting Hugo's daughter Elsa as his tournament lady, Hugo is penniless but decides to pawn his wife's jewelry to get her an outfit. Getting lost in the forest, he reaches a mysterious semi-run-down castle, where he's seized after sleeping in the stable by a beast-man, who plans to execute him for stealing a rose, unless he redeems himself with the first creature greeting him at home. He planned the dog, but it's Elsa, who insists to go, pleases the creature and slowly learns, mostly from his bewitched d-servant Wenzel and Irmel, he's basically good but under a secret spell, being granted prospect of release if she stays to get to know him, is rescued by him and even gets Hugo's debts paid off and a fortune promised. Still adversity and hard choices await them.—KGF Vissers

A penniless and witless shopkeeper picks a rose from the castle garden after a night of pampering and engages the wraith of the Beast. In exchange for the rose, the shopkeeper must either die himself or give the beast the first living creature he sees upon his departure from the castle. The shopkeeper agrees to bring him the first living creature he sees in order to stay alive. Unfortunately, the first living creature he sees is his beautiful daughter, Elsa, and he is devastated. Once she has heard his tale, she digs up roses from her mother's grave to give to the beast in exchange for the rose her father had picked. Her father realizes too late that his daughter had left to the castle where the beast is expecting a meal. Once the beast sees her beauty, he chooses to marry her instead of eating her, but she refuses due to his temper and appearance. The beast makes a deal with her to stay until St. James Day. On that day she may leave the castle with as much gold as she will ever need, but he tells her that she may choose to stay and be his wife once she got to know him. Her father, meanwhile, has become sick and penniless as he is, he cannot pay his taxes and becomes prisoner of the local taxmen. Attempting to escape the castle by climbing out of her window and down a line of knotted clothes, the knots come undone and she falls only to be caught by the Beast. She is devastated by the failure and feels utterly alone. There are two servants of the castle who are also deformed; a man with donkey ears and a woman with a pig's nose. They try to tell her of the curse that is upon them but seem unable to tell the full tale. Elsa forces them to walk through the castle with her and she eventually finds a room with three portraits in it of the former royal line. King, Queen and son, Prince Arbo. Her first judgment is that the Beast slew the royal family and her suspicions grow when she finds the crown and scepter in his room, covered in dust and cobwebs. Over time, Elsa realizes that the beast has a good heart despite his grotesque features. Her former belief that he was a murderous beast is turned around when she begins to understand his heart and good natured soul. On the night of St. James, he hosts a festival for her with a glorious banquet and dancing. At the end, he tells her the tale of the curse that fell upon the royal family. How the king and queen were very good people who took care of their kingdom and the poor. Both of them died very quickly and that left the Prince as the rightful ruler. In his grief, the prince plundered the kingdom. One poor man cursed the prince that he would die as the garden of roses around him dies. The Beast proposes to Elsa and she is torn. She has come to care for him but her love for her father and the promise he kept to let her go free are more important to her and she flees from the castle, leaving behind a horrified beast. What the servants could not tell her is that if she choose to leave the castle, the beast and the servants would die as the garden has been dying for a long time and the last of the roses had bloomed. A great storm shakes the forest surrounding the castle and Elsa is nearly killed by a falling tree when the Beast appears and catches the tree, taking a branch into his shoulder and wounding him. He tells Elsa that she must go and that he loves her, giving her a large sack of gold. Elsa flees leaving the wounded beast to wander back into the castle where he collapses in front of the portrait of the Prince. When Elsa returns home, she finds her father gone. She is led to the city by her dog and finds her father in the barracks with the townspeople throwing vegetables at him. The taxman tells Elsa her father could not pay his taxes so she drops a handful of gold onto the ground at his feet and frees her father. The ruling knight of the city sees her with the gold and beautiful gown from a distance and realizes that she must have been given stolen money. Elsa takes her father back home and nurses him back to health, telling him the tale of how the beast was kind and with a good heart. She realizes that she loves the beast and rushes back to the castle to save him only to be stopped by the knight and accused of stealing the money she'd used to pay her father's freedom. She eludes the knight and his men and makes it back to the castle only to find the Beast lying nearly dead on the grounds of the castle. As the last of the rose petals fall off of the flower, Elsa confesses her love for the Beast and kisses him. A beam of light erupts from the Beast and all of the castle is brought back to life, flowers sprouting everywhere in full bloom. Elsa realizes that the beast is no longer a beast, but a handsome man and none other than Prince Arbo. Prince Arbo confesses that he is the prince and that he was cursed to die with the roses but not for the love of a woman. The knight arrives with his henchmen to find Elsa in the arms of the Prince. Prince Arbo and the Knight duel, eventually making their way up the castle to a higher stone platform. Prince Arbo is the victor and spares the knight his life only for the knight to try and cut him down. The knight misses and from the force of his movements he topples off of the platform to his death at the ground below. Elsa and the prince return to her father's home where the townspeople have gathered to see the grand entrance of the long lost prince. Prince Arbo asks for Elsa's hand in marriage and her father is beside himself with joy. The Townspeople cheer for Elsa and Prince Arbo, calling them the newlyweds as they kiss.