Kohtalon kirja

Kohtalon Kirja makes a grand attempt of featuring almost every genre of film 'not' inherent to the Finnish Movie Canon. While the makers are to be commended for their efforts the result is a lot less than the sum of its parts.

Kohtalon Kirja is an episodic movie where each story ends at a cliffhanger which is resolved by the film's end. Despite the level of effort in ensuring the high production values and the support of, undoubtedly, some famous Finnish actors the problem with the film's plot is that it feels very indifferent. The same goes for the actor-performances which all lack any sort of genuine emotion.

At its best the film is perhaps even slightly farcical and definitely over-dramatic and entertaining. At its worst it feels like a joke which isn't nearly as funny as the film-makers intended. A film worth watching as an ambitious experimentation in Finnish film-making, but one which falls short of the dynamic of Jade Warrior or the energy and craft of Star Wreck.

A couple of months ago my friends were talking about the new Finnish fantasy film Kohtalon Kirja. I have to say that I did not expect much from the movie, but I also didn't expect anything this bad.

There is absolutely nothing good to say about the film. The acting is terrible. Even the famous Finnish veteran actors sounded like amateurs. Visual look of the film is beyond description and the soundtrack had some worst heavy metal music I have ever heard.

But the real reason I hate the film so much is the action. It was obvious that many of the actors had no training in any martial art. Even the most basic training would have made a big difference. All the moves in the fight scenes were slow and painfully clumsy.

This film isn't even funny as a bad trash movie. It is just bad. Avoid it like a plaque.

I think this movie was fairly good when you think that this was as far as I know graduate work for some filmography students from Tampere polytechnic. For that I would give this movie grade 9. But as for commercial release on other hand I must place this below mediocre movie for apparently not so professional end product. But they show lots of potential for future though.

Plot in summary:

Priest finds The Book of Destiny(Kohtalon Kirja) and ends up to adventure in time to save whole universe. This movie mixes many types of movie genres in rather interesting way. Maybe we will see version made with big money some day ;-)

Book Of Fate doesn't compete in the Major League, but it is nevertheless a Champion in it's own right. You'll have to put yourself in the right context: this is not a Hollywood production, not even a b-class movie with still decent budget. This is a very low-budget movie - we are talking about probably some few thousand dollars at most, no more. In fact the movie is a thesis for the two directors. Still they managed to get some of the finest Finnish professional actors in, and even the soundtrack is filled with internationally famous Finnish rock and heavy metal bands (like Nightwish with over 1.5 million records sold). These acts alone are noteworthy.

The main idea of the movie are the struggles of an "eternal champion", and the idea is not very far from the themes of author Michael Moorcock. Also, it takes courage to select five totally different genres (horror, western, war, action thriller and SF) and combine them in an episode movie.

This movie seems to divide opinions very much - and that's understandable. If you are a kind of person who is interested only in the technical details and finesse over the contents, you will be disappointed. But if you are able to see behind the financial and technical limits, you may appreciate the over-the-top pastiches of these genres, and the enthusiasm behind. Sure, the CGI-effects may be a little cranky - but so were the CGI-images of the excellent series Babylon 5. In my opinion, the only true limitations are in the people's imagination, not in the technical limitations.

As far as I'm concerned, the results were highly satisfactory - I had no expectations of this movie, but I found myself entertained. And that's what this movie is all about.

There are different episodes with one central character, or his reincarnations.. the guy is supposed to save the world with the book of fate. Now, as the previous commentator noted, the movie is pretty much awful. It could have been put together a whole lot nicer, as the effects and some of the scenes and makeup is nicely done. What I personally see as the biggest tragedy in all of this is that Finland has never produced anything quite like The Book of Fate, and maybe the guys tried too much to fit everything there and in the end all future financing for similar movies will be withdrawn. Which is a pity.

With more proficiency, it could have been shown all around the world. Veteran actors and the guy playing the reincarnation man as well as his eternal girlfriend do their job adequately, but the bottom line is, seems like the overall story just remains obscure and doesn't engage the viewer enough.

Plus you can't dazzle the audience by offering them inferior copies of Matrix, Dracula or Unforgiven all spliced together.. simply doesn't work.