The Wiwi Jury — our in-house panel of music unprofessionals — continues to rank and review the songs from the soundtrack of Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. Next up, we listen to “Lion of Love”, performed in the film by the fiery Russian Alexander Lemtov, played by Dan Stevens. Behind the scenes, the song is sung by Erik Mjönes, while the song is written by acclaimed pop songwriters including Savan Kotecha and Rami Yacoub. Did “Lion of Love” make us roar or purr? Read on to find out!
Alexander Lemtov (Erik Mjönes) – “Lion of Love”
“Lion of Love” reviews
Antranig: If you’re playing a drinking game, take one shot for every animal mentioned. This is straight outta Moscow 2009! My favourite song in the movie performed by my favourite character, “Lion of Love” is erotic, tantalising and dramatic — all the ingredients of a Eurovision pop banger. You’ve got scantily clad dancers, a highly theatrical performer and a memorable hook. The staging was absolutely brilliant, representative of a typical Eurovision performance of yesteryear in so many ways.
Score: 10/10
Julia: That deep voice – is this my favourite Romanian opera-singing Dracula Cezar disguised as a spandex-wearing Russian? This is token kitsch Eurovision and I love every moment of it.
Score: 8/10
Renske: Everyone who has ever seen anything of the Russian music contest New Wave will find “Lion of Love” sounding strangely familiar. The song sounds honestly like Nikolay Baskov providing vocals to the latest Philipp Kirkorov demo. The worst part of it all (or maybe the best) is that when Russia would indeed enter such a song, it would probably become an actual favourite to win the whole thing.
Score: 7/10
Sebastian: Dan Stevens does a stand-up job in creating that unique Russian-cheesy sensibility into “Lion of Love”. The staging is ripped straight out of the late noughties, and proves king of that genre jungle. The over-eroticised, flaming, whip snapping added to the flair of this cheesy belter.
Score: 7/10
Tom: Erotic, powerful and camp (and weirdly Russian). One would think this would be perfect Eurovision cat-nip. However for me, though Dan Stevens was my favourite character in the film and completely stole the show, I think as a concept, “Lion of Love” took it an inch too far for today’s modern Eurovision. It could have won in the noughties but I am not convinced this a Eurovision song we would hear now. A very good song, make no mistake. Just a tad dated.
Score: 7.5/10
In the Wiwi Jury we have 11 jurors but only have room for five reviews. The remaining scores are below:
| Deban: 5/10
Esma: 8/10 Pablo: 8.5/10 |
Robyn: 10/10
Suzanne: 9/10 William: 8.5/10 |
We have removed the highest and lowest scores prior to calculating the average. This is to remove outliers and potential bias. We have removed a low of 5 and a high of 10.
Wiwi Jury verdict: 8.17/10
What do you think of this song? Share your own score and review below!
Does nothing for me unfortunately. I’m not enjoying the Spanish guitar nor the Samba beats and the cliche-ridden performance is unfortunately all too real (see Raylee’s Wild from Norway this year to realize how there is not a great deal of parody going on in this song). Dan Stevens’ performance in the film is immense, but the song is a bit, meh.
3.5/10
I am sorry but I do not like the song 🙁
WOW Im afraid I do not agree with you at all, this screams eurovision yes… the eurovision of a decade ago, the worst era in terms of quality, by miles, and do not even there to fight me on that one.
This is what people expect from eurovision but to be honest, I dont really think that this song would have made it through the semifinals if it were to compete in ESC2021
Oh, yes. The 100% televote decade that almost killed the music.
It’s a catchy bop! Sounds a bit dated, but together with “Lemtov’s” energy on stage and the fire-and-body-performance it’s a great pleasure for me to watch 🙂 8/10
best song in the movie by far
Uhm… ok. I guess we are taking this as a parody in a comedy movie much like “Love Love Peace Peace”. If not, 8.17/10 is way way too much and disrespectful.
This song is the most likely to appear on eurovision stage, and only Russia can send something like this. This totally grabs the russian esc vibe with a perfect unholy mix of sergey lazerev and dima bilan with philip kirkorov doing the staging.
the way in which Antranig gives this 10/10 but gives genuinely fantastic songs a 0/10
It actually reflects his taste in the real contest…
I know right? He gave one of the best NF songs of 2016, Seis by Mick Pedaja, a 0 out of 10. It’s honestly frustrating.
I’ve learned to skip his comments as he’s a joke.