At the end of the 16th century, Wallachian ruler Prince Michael the Brave overcame the adversity of the Ottoman and Austrian empires to unite Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania into one country.

[1] The film had initially been intended to be an American-Romanian superproduction, with Columbia Pictures proposing actors such as Charlton Heston, Orson Welles, Laurence Harvey, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, or Kirk Douglas.

[2] The story is historically less authentic, but is full of grand battle scenes, political plots, betrayals and family drama.

[4] The film has two parts and was shot in several locations, such as Istanbul, Prague, and Călugăreni,[5] but also the Danube, the Black Sea, Alba Iulia, Carpathian Mountains, Bucharest, Sibiu, Sinaia, and Mirăslău.

[11] At the Moscow International Film Festival in 1971, it won a Golden Award,[12] but lost to Bilyy ptakh z chornoyu vidznakoyu (The White Bird Marked with Black).