Molke Soleiman

In The Name Of God

when first I went to the theater to watch this movie I expected A well Written script with poor production. However I was proved wrong. Of course the Director has done a great job making this movie since all Iranian movies has turned into poor romance comedies which are not by the way funny at all.

But this was a great experience for me. I hope the director makes the sequels better than this one. The music too wasn't good... at least it wasn't what I expected.

It's a good movie. It sure is better than movies like Percy Jackson... But not as good as a first rate movie like The Lord Of The Rings.

This movie will not get you tiered. You shouldn't watch it with high expectations. It's an iranian movie not a Hollywood one. I've not seen this much graphic & music works on an iranian movie this much good.

Solomon have a good personality, innocent face with beautiful close up scenes. You can't watch movie & don't like him. I like acting of all actors & makeups.

The budget spent on the film was high and It is clear in the movie. You can see the difference between this movie & rest of all iranian movies.

As an iranian movie it makes me satisfied. I wanna say a good job to all crews of movie.

a Muslim story. and an universal message. Antisemitic references. and good intentions. visual effects who reminds many Asian films. and an impressive effort of entire artistic team. short, a film who could be defined in many ways. waste of time, artificial, ambitious, childish, great or impressive. but who has the virtue to present a story who lives in the faith of Muslims, Jews and Christians. the high price of piece. the challenge of battle against personal demons. the image of wise leader, strong and humble who represents the ideal of every society. Shahriar Bahrani does a decent work and this is the only important fact. it is important not only for the great effort to make the film but for ambition to give a special story. because Molke Soleiman is a testimony of faith. not a story because it seems be a sketch. but as first part of a series, the hope of viewer remains at optimistic level. not copy of Hollywood blockbuster for the simple detail than the purpose is profound different. not as part of chain of the Iranian cinematography masterpieces because the acting, script, image and dialogues are far by it. for an European, Orthodox Christian, like me, it is a definition of Islam in middle of too many controversies. it is the best manner to send a message about essence of faith. like a spiritual wake up.sure, the source is The Quran but this fact has not a challenge for a Christian public. or, maybe, for the Jew public. because the message is the only significant in the case of this poor film. not coherent, too poetic, not real convincing. but useful. and that is the basic motif to see it.

In 2004, when Iranian Parliament approved the budget of the big production movies, Mojtaba Faravardeh suggested Solomon's life story and it was accepted to be the first Iranian big produced movie. There was many arguments why not an Iranian great honor of history to be filmed and there is yet.

After 2 years of researches over history and testaments, the group decided to write the screenplay just based on Holy Quran. The researches were not only about story line but also about set and costumes, and new technologies in nowadays cinema. So the group made many trips to many countries and after all they found Leo Lo as Visual Supervisor and Kinson Tsang as Sound Mixer that both of them were from Hong Kong. Again many argues begun why not European and Western Specialists? Mojtaba Faravardeh who became the Producer of this project at that time answered: "The first problem is western sanctions and second is different believes of us and them about Solomon and third is our Iranian specialist to be trained."

'The Kingdom Of Solomon' filmed from May 2006 to September 2007 in 9 months but with 5 months of standby for lack of budget. The group spent one year for post-production and the film was going to 2009 Fajr Film Festival but it didn't because Christianity New Year holidays and Chinese New Year holidays stopped foreign group to finish visual effects. After that stop, group finished the film and sent it to Chan Kwong-Wing to compose music for 'The kingdom of Solomon'.

The film was ready now to be screened but 2009 presidential election and events after that made group to send the film to 2010 Fajr Film Festival and at there 'The kingdom of Solomon' nominated in 9 parts and caught 5 Crystal Simorgh for best Visual Effects, best Music, best Sound Mix, best Make up, and best supporting actor by Mahdi Faghih who acted as Aara the Magician. But most of Iranian reviewers were not satisfied with the film quality since for the first Iranian big production movie that had five million dollars of budget, the result was acceptable.

These argue brought farther the release date and after all 'The kingdom of Solomon' movie released on 7 October 2010 in Iran and made 2.5 million dollars revenue until today. We should also remember that because of no good film, Iranians loosed their habit of going to cinemas. The film is going to be screened in Middle East countries and some other parts of the world after its screening in Iran finishes.

Shahriar Bahrani- writer and director- made his best in the first Part of Solomon trilogy as he did in 'Saint Mary' (2001) movie before. He promised to do better in making 'The kingdom of Solomon' following parts and I know he will do.

'The Kingdom Of Solomon The Prophet (Part One)' will be out soon and I recommend you to watch it.

It may be the first Iranian film to have international quality. When I saw the film, I was very happy that Iranian cinema has progressed so much that make a quality film. Wait for higher quality movies from Iran.