The White King

Really, it's a bit an empty movie. Some great shots, clearly the crew is capable, but the movie as it's edited just doesn't go anywhere. 90 minutes of wasted time. It carries the potential to so much more but never really delivers. If you watch it, do it for the esthetics. For the movie in its entirety it is not particularly worth the time.

This is a low budget, low-action, dystopian recycled story, apparently filmed in or near Hungary, with good british acting. I don't recommend it, even to dystopia fans. It's STAND BY ME meets 1984 / HANDMAID'S TALE et al. There's little there, there.

I enjoyed this new film and also, as a small rule, I am generally really interested to see new directors'/producers work. Especially when the is a dearth of good stuff coming out of the established US/UK areas, well picked Edinburgh Film Festival!

It was interesting and although one can see allusions, references etc to established works such as Orwell, Huxley and so on - well they do say there are only 7 stories in the world! - this is a new take on it.

Loved the the boy lead actor, and Deyn (who I thought surprisingly good and natural) loved the cinematography and the story of a (particularly relevant today) dystopian society, there were others that also stood out, although I was a little surprised to see De Lint who I have not seen for a very long time on the big screen.

Moody and thought provoking with one or two touches of brilliance. Not perfect (a first film n.b.) but the fact that I was engaged throughout says it all.

Four stars overall, but seven stars for the idea. Four stars because dialogue was hard to follow with no subtitles; poor enunciation; really poor audio level control, and that's coming from a person w/normal hearing. Seven stars for a dystopian future storyline similar to what China, Russia, North Korea, Turkey, Syria offer the world now (and the US kind of heading that way recently). A trickle down economy in which the wealthy and/or powered privileged keep the masses in line w/slogans w/nationalist religious fervor, and the scraps to keep them sustainable day-to-day. Personal expression of your dreams, etc. are reason for sanction or imprisonment. Appropriately, filmed out of Hungary.

Ten Stars. My wife's parents grew up in one of the socialist paradises, Bulgaria, and they recommend this film as the most incisive depiction of what goes on when the people hand over more and more control of the economy, and with it, education and with that, people's lives, to a government. I do want to comment on one reviewer here who said a scene was copied from George Orwell. Please read Christoper Hitchens' "Why Orwell Matters." Orwell included an actual brainwashing exercise in Lenin's socialist USSR. The white King is not copying Orwell, but rather including in the story a common enough abuse in socialist countries. See this film, and understand why the largest purveyors of violence have always been governments, and especially those claiming to be looking after the social welfare.