La espada del rey

I just watched the movie and all i can say is "WOW!" This is a truly beautiful film. It has everything that i personally want from a good movie. Lots of fighting a action, hot girls, an interesting plot, lots of blood, humor, beautiful camera work, a big ass battle toward the end, and even some sex! I just love it. I heard it was good when i started watching it, but I was just astonished how unbelievably brilliant yet simple it was. I was excited throughout the whole thing.

Oh my God, its so good. Everyone has to watch it! No, I take that back. Don't watch it, if you expect lots of romance, and stuff like that. Also don't if don't want to see any gore or brutality cause there's quite a lot of it there. I was surprised about it. Its not like I don't like it, we are all just so used to the good old PGs or PG-13s that Hollywood is throwing at us twice a month.

Anyway, watch it, you will not regret it, I promise.

This my 2 cents just adding to what anybody else written.

I feel the movie is made just the way a teenagers war movie is expected to be. Something always saves the hero (or important character) in the last minute or even last breath (typical)! The bad guys have no chance, they drop like flies. So no more comment necessary I think, the movie is what you might expect plus a little childish.

No, no relationships or love story here.

Blod and gore, yes absolutely and it is funny too. When director wants to shock you some of the more important characters get hit perfectly in the center of the forehead, so it becomes a bit amusing.

Still it is an OK movie but nothing more. Have to add that some footage is very good.

The "big battle" is no big battle. The Swedish king Carl you learn nothing about, he is just someone on the other side of the battlefield. The best "big battle" which really oozes of realism/authenticity, is in the absolutely superb movie Gettysburg. The battle sequences in this movie are not important, not to the movies main story or as a "history class". No strategy is revealed.

So the movie is what it is and that is about the two Chivalliers from France sent to Russia as a punishment for dueling. This is how the movie starts off, and above I've written what the movie is not.

========= This has nothing to do with the review but, someone wondered about the Swedish voice-overs.

Voice 1: Halting severely, not a Swede. Used for the older characters.

Voice 2: Initially extremely good Swedish but then deteriorating so he is a foreigner.

Voice 3: Surely not a Swede, and I expect a German or a Russian very good a German and then trying to speak Swedish.

Voice 4: Finnish/Swedish. It is Swedish as spoken in Finland, could be the real deal here. Only that voice disappears and does not come back, only used once.

Voice 5: Perfect Swedish, actually it is an accent, take Stockholm with a radius of about 50-100 miles. He is used for the lowly enlisted infantry soldiers. Not a mistake all the way to his very last sentence which made me wonder. OK, so he might not be a Swede but surely have lived here, maybe as a student. I try give an example but in English: instead of saying "we need to withdraw from the battlefield" it sounded clearly as if he said "we need to withdraw from the bottlefield", unless of course that IS what they called it several hundred years ago and I don't know that.

Voice 6: Perfect Swedish, no accent, so its "standard Swedish", no mistakes, must be a Swede. Also used only for the soldiers.

------ Also remember Swedish army used men from several countries so if they don't speak perfect Swedish then that might very well be perfectly alright. This is if anybody care about stuff like that. The movie is OK.

Sluga Gosudarev (2007) is a historical film plenty of adventure , drama , passion , duels , extraordinary scenarios and breathtaking battles spectacularly filmed . It is an impressive flick set in Europe, 1709 , being based on a true story when Russia and Sweden are at war and most of the characters in the film were based on real people such as Louis XIV , Peter the Great and Charles XII . And there takes place the notorious battle of Poltova , the decisive victory of Peter I of Russia over the Swedish forces under Field Marshal Carl Gustav Rehnskiöld in one of the battles of the Great Northern War. It is widely believed to have been the beginning of Sweden's decline as a Great Power; the Russians took their place as the leading nation of north-eastern Europe. The picture deals with two French duelists are exiled by King Louis XIV of France: one to the side of King Charles XII of Sweden , the other to the side of Czar Peter the Great of Russia . Both of them become involved a loving conflict and factional disputes . Although separated by different allegiance and enemy , fate get them together.

This historical drama packs intrigue , sword-crossing , spectacular battles and wonderful outdoors . It's a sweeping and historical epic including breathtaking fights . Acceptable acting from main and support cast, though none of the performances are really bad, but none are very good . Evocative and functional Musical Score . Gorgeous and luxurious Cinematography . Impressive Production Design showing breathtaking outdoors , luxurious palaces and rousing battles . This costumer epic drama was professionally directed by the Russian Oleg Ryaskov , though contains flaws and gaps , including some scenes with no much sense .

The flick is inspired by historical events , the actual deeds were the following : Charles XII led early Swedish victories at Copenhagen and at the Battle of Narva in 1700 when he knocked both Denmark-Norway and Russia temporarily out of the war .During this time Peter I of Russia rebuilt his army into modern form, basing it primarily on infantry trained to use linear tactics and modern firearms properly. He then achieved a stunning propaganda victory when he established the city of Saint Petersburg . In the spring Charles resumed his advance, but his army had been reduced by about one-third due to starvation, frostbite and other effects of the weather. The wet weather had also seriously depleted the army's supplies of gunpowder; the cannon were also essentially out of action, due to a lack of usable ammunition. Charles's first action was to lay siege to the fort of Poltava on the Vorskla River in Ukraine.When the battle opened, Charles had about 14,000 men, while Peter commanded about 45,000. The battle began on 27 June 1709 with the Swedes advancing boldly against the Russian fortified lines just north of Poltava. At first, the battle started off in a traditional fashion, with the better trained Swedes pressing in on the Russians' redoubts, overrunning a few Russian defensive redoubts . The Swedish seemed to possess an advantage, but this was quickly nullified . The Swedish infantry, commanded by General Lewenhaupt, attempted to attack the Russians in their fortified camp just north of Poltava. But the Swedish advance soon faltered, partly because the infantry had been ordered to withdraw and reorganise.The Swedes were on the verge of a breakthrough and needed the cavalry unfortunately for the Swedes, it was disorganised . Several Swede regiments were surrounded in a classic Cannae-style battle as Bauer's Russian cavalry swarmed around the Swedish army and attacked the Swedish rear guard. Cruetz and the cavalry tried to buy the infantry time to get away; several units attacked the Russians head on despite them forming into squares. By this stage, the Swedes had no organised bodies of troops to oppose the Russian infantry or cavalry. Small groups of foot soldiers managed to break through and escape to the south while most of the rest were overwhelmed and ridden down. Seeing the defeat of his army from a stretcher in the rear, Charles ordered the army to retreat at 11:00 a.m. By noon, the battle was over as Russian cavalry had mopped up the stragglers on the battlefield and returned to their own lines. Charles then gathered the remainder of his troops and baggage train, and retreated to the south later that same day, abandoning the siege of Poltava. Lewenhaupt led the surviving Swedes and some of the Cossack forces to the Dnieper River, but was doggedly pursued by the Russian regular cavalry and 3,000 Kalmyks and forced to surrender three days later at Perevolochna, on 1 July.

...though not without flaws.

The main flaw was the plot, which sometimes seemed a bit contrived and incoherent, in particular the love story plot line. There were some clichés that could have been avoided or at least played differently, but once I got used to the fact that the whole thing was a sort of Three Musketeers meets Saving Private Ryan genre mash, that didn't bother me too much.

What starts out as a depiction of the splendor and pomp of Versailles under the Sun King eventually becomes a fairly brutal war story where several competing groups face each other, more accurately depicting the sometimes chaotic situation on the Russo-Polish borderlands during much of the late 17yh to early 18th century. Seemingly sympathetic characters are killed almost as an afterthought, and witnessing the differing reactions of the two protagonists - one French, the other Russian - brings home the differences in culture and outlook between them.

Kudos to the Russian film industry for their efforts towards historical correctness at least in props and settings, and for making the different characters speak different languages. Not knowing too much French, I cannot judge the pronunciation of the French lines spoken in the movie. Being Norwegian, and knowing a thing or two about the language spoken on the other side of the border to the east, I can say something about the Swedish lines spoken. In short, they ranged from obviously foreign (particularly on the part of the Swedish doctors) to what sounded seamlessly native. Since the Swedish army did incorporate a lot of foreigners, I didn't find that particularly odd. In any case, I've rarely seen a Hollywood movie do the same, it seems that making someone speak English with a funny accent is about as far as they are willing to go in the language department, at least up to fairly recently.

All in all a solid piece of production with a few rough edges. I'd like to see more Russian historical films, since there is a lot of interesting (and action-packed) history there to be made films of.

An action adventure. The picture of the screenwriter and director Oleg Ryaskov, who is known to the general public only by two TV series "Notes of the forwarder of the Secret Chancellery", but before that he shot this full meter. And I can say with confidence that he took into account the mistakes of this work. For the first time I looked at this picture more than ten years ago, and then I almost did not remember it, and now I understand why it happened - boredom. And here's my brief opinion for you - Do you speak rashshan? The picture had both pros that should be mentioned, and cons that dragged her to the bottom of Russian cinema. This concludes the much-needed introduction, and let's get to the point.

So, the pros: 1. Costumes and scenery - the picture is centered around the Northern War, specifically around the Battle of Poltava, the victory in which was the most massive and significant in Russian military history before Borodin. The uniforms of Russians and Swedes exactly correspond to historical prototypes, and the costumes of the French nobility and especially ladies' outfits are perfectly seen on the representatives of the beautiful half of humanity. The scenery, although budget-friendly, creates a sense of mass character and generally immerses in Europe and Russia of the early eighteenth century. The specialists in costumes and decorations have worked out their money one hundred percent. There are no complaints here (unless, of course, you are an expert in the military history of this period, who may notice technical flaws).

2. Battle scenes - the Battle of Poltava itself is shown well (although some key points are omitted), and create the effect of involvement in what is happening for the viewer. Explosions, shots, hand-to-hand fights, especially fencing pleased. You can see the refinement of movements, training and a kind of grace, if the fights can be called that. It is clear that these technical specialists were there, so the viewer will be delighted with such scenes. These scenes look good even now, in our digital age.

3. Alexander Bukharov is the only actor who is able to interest the viewer and who causes at least some emotions, because his character is very charismatic, and he at least tries to speak the way they did at that time, and in general the only one who is sorry. The rest - well, so-so.

So, the cons: 1. Scenario - two aristocrats quarreled in Paris on a far-fetched pretext, it came to a duel, which is prohibited by decree of the king, and then His Majesty decides to punish the fearless insolents. He sends one to Charles the Twelfth, and the second to the Russian tsar Peter the Great literally on the eve of the Battle of Poltava, so that they both would be observers and report all the most interesting things to their monarch. But these letters of recommendation contain something else. Here they also brought in a line of Polish mutts who kill Russian soldiers in the near rear, the line of the beloved of one of the duelists. In general, it turned out to be such a mess that you don't even want to look at. I implore you - rewind immediately to the Battle of Poltava and imagine that you are watching a kind of short film, because this battle is not a frequent guest in the cinema.

2. Logic - oh oh oh! There are big problems with her here, and they begin with a fatal duel, the pretext for which looks so far-fetched that you already want to laugh. The relationship between "our" Frenchman and the hero Bukharov is just a joke to the chickens. And this is just the beginning. If I paint everything thoroughly, then the review will be in fifty parts. And the finale will finish you off with its illogicality.

3. English credits - Oleg Ryaskov and company! Who did you make this picture for? Just if for the Western market, then the abundance of stamps and rigid stereotypes about Russia are clear, and if you did it for the Russian market and the CIS countries, then this whole set will cause irritation rather than patriotism, because it feels that it was the patriotic education that was aimed at, but you turned the other way. It's good that at least the "Notes of the forwarder of the Secret Chancellery" turned out to be good, and all the nonsense of the "Servant of the sovereign" is missing in them.

4. Speech - why do Russian soldiers talk as is customary now, in the twenty-first century? No one said that back then. Maybe at least Mr. Ryaskov would have read the documents before writing a script for a historical picture!

5. Characters - they are dummies who perform only functions. No one is remembered, although there are Chadov, Chindyaykin, Arntholz and so on. There was potential, but they didn't have time to realize it, it's a pity, because the result is more than modest.

6. Boredom - when the characters don't cling, then the viewer stops following the script, which almost happened to me. It was painful to watch this nonsense, but I overcame it. But he yawned very loudly at the same time.

In general, we have another failure of Russian cinema, which had good makings, but they could not really develop them. The script and the character buried him. I'm sorry for the time spent on it.

As a result, we have a failed action adventure, with a frankly bad script, missing acting. Great costumes and scenery, such music.

My rating is 4 out of 10 and I do not recommend this picture for viewing!