Schwert der Rache

"Tell your father the Gods can no longer wait."

Don't you like slow-motion scenes during bloody fights with a sword such as in "300"? You thoroughly enjoy a colorful film? And you expect a masterful story with clever twists? Then "Sword of Vengeance" won't appeal to you. Firstly this medieval spectacle movie is painfully slow. And not because of the constant use of slow motion, but also because of the terribly slow dialogs. The first minutes you think it's a gimmick made up by one of the crew members because he's such a fervent fan of the movie "300". Until you notice that almost the entire movie is in slow motion, ad nauseam. Had they limited themselves in using that film technique and inserted less breaks throughout the dialogs, then this film would be finished after 30 minutes. In addition, the whole film is grayish and dreary. The entire film is soaked in mud with a desolate landscape in the background. Red is the only striking color in this generally gray film, and this by the frequent spilled blood.

The whole story is set in medieval England after the Battle of Hastings. Saxon England was defeated by William the Conqueror and is being suppressed by this merciless ruler in a rather barbaric way. In the north the English population is being exploited, murdered and humiliated by Earl Durant and his sons Lord Artus and Romain . As the introduction tells us there are mass killings, called The Harrowing, happening everyday and the locals are living in appalling conditions. Until one day a stranger appears and slaughters a few of Durant's men. This warrior, called Shadow Walker, is a sort of "Conan" but less muscular and proud owner of a for that time fashionable hairstyle. Eventually he appears to be on a personal quest and he manages to gather some villagers around him to take revenge on Durant.

The biggest flaw of this film is perhaps the simplistic and linear storyline. In terms of content there's nothing much to see and don't expect cunningly elaborated developments or characters. The emphasis is on the confrontation which means considerable swinging around with iron swords and other medieval weapons. It's a concatenation of splashing mud, blood and spit (in slow motion of course). One can safely compared it to a game like "Ryse: Son of Rome". Brutal, gray and bloody with saber-rattling as a central theme. A not so original film, probably appreciated by the fans of this sub-genre. It's therefore unnecessary to discuss about acting performance as this was elaborated to the barest minimum. Tough body language is mixed with sometimes rather idiotic sounding dialogs. Stanley Weber looks like an unshakable battering ram who rushes straight to his goal and mercilessly makes sure that every opponent bites the dust. A kind of conqueror in his own personal territory. Annabelle Wallis as Anna (recently acting in the movie Annabelle) is part of the tribe that captures Shadow Walker. Afterwards they choose to stand next to him. She tries to play a temperamental and stubborn woman, but still looks a little too soft for that. The rest of the cast is just side issue. No memorable performances there."Sword of Vengeance" is not a bad medieval action movie, but the end result is still a sort of go-for-it-without-thinking film.

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Just about worth a watch on a rainy afternoon, but don't get your hopes up. Very limited characterisation, sparse and rather hammy dialogue, so the only aspects that saves this production from media oblivion is that the fight scenes are well-orchestrated, the special effects good, and the cinematography is well done. Very much a mediaeval take on the spaghetti western/ samurai movie genre, in which, like Clint, the hero often wears a cape and says little or nothing throughout the film. Glad I was able to watch this for free on Amazon prime, as I certainly wouldn't have wanted to pay good money for a viewing.

As is says above "From the creator of 'Hammer of the Gods'", so if youlike hammer of gods you will like this one, if not better to skip this movie.

The movie does not have any character development, nor story development. So its basically just fighting.

It have a lot of slow motion scenes, extremely a lot i would say. It have good photography,good use of color( its dark) which makes it more likable. Anything else its pretty bad, the cast, the story( very unimaginative), the characters, and it has the worst army leadership you will ever see, and i will say the music is quite bad.

So to summarize if you have a lot of free time than you should watch this movie, but if you have something better to do than do that, don't waste your time with this movie.

I remember watching Hammer of the Gods and liking the beginning, then getting disappointed by the ending, so I started watching Sword of Vengeance with apprehension. It was a good idea, because it is kind of the same.

The bleak and desolate landscape, the silent warrior, the tyranny of the Normans over the Saxons, I bought it all. It again gave hope of something really good. Unfortunately the plot was a mess. I am not going to explain it here, but let me just say that warrior should have remained silent.

I also researched the characters and I couldn't find anything historical related to the story. The only real thing is the Harrying of the North where a single source describes the death of 100000 Saxons at the hand of William the Conqueror, but it is unclear how he could have achieved this with the resources he had.

Bottom line: they got the feel right, but they should have worked a lot more on the story and character development. It is a better done movie than Hammer of the Gods, I think, but that movie may have been better overall just because I remember it and this film I will forget after writing this review.

Sword of Vengeance is shot almost entirely in slow motion. Characters perceive time differently from us, as they feel the need to dramatically walk, talk and stare at each other while posing at the camera. Visual is all shades of gray, while this might be stylish at first, it overstays its welcome by the fifteen minutes mark, by then the main character probably have taken his fifth slow-mo steps. Story is thin at best, with average runtime and majority of it is painful slow-mo, the film barely has any substance to offer.

An outsider comes to a village, he beats up a few thugs, makes a speech and fights tyranny. This simple premise is flawed by the first couple of scenes. The outsider dispatches people easily at one point, only to be jumped by a random extra and got whooped in the next. Considering that everyone moves as though they are in fashion show, it's borderline comedy this near superhuman can be even wounded, his plot armor must have worn off.

Acting is equivalent of cardboard box, but at least one could draw smiley or sad faces at a box. To be fair, it's not the actors' fault, the script barely gives anyone personality aside from one-dimensional extra from Vikings or 300. Story is heavily predictable, and the title helps by giving it away. There could be some underlying message of vengeance here but it's buried by the piles of slow-mo spam.

The fight is mediocre, either it's slow or shaky cam. There's barely logic in this as well, people swing and charge recklessly. Soundtracks are mesh between electronic and techno. It's a strange style and could've worked better if the movie had ordinary pace. Cinematography is different shots of a forest, some with all trees, a few buildings and its interior. The film tries too hard on creating cool shots, it is literally nothing but slow motion.

Watching Sword of Vengeance is more like looking at slideshow of concept art, which may be edgy in modesty, but not for entire movie. Alternatively, one could watch Robin Hood in half speed or compilation of fights from 300, any of those should prove more interesting.