Sword of Vengeance

It starts off slow and moves on at the same pace throughout. After 10 minutes, I realized that it wasn't going to speed up.

But that's OK, because this movie is about the hero. He is, quite literally, all that matters. The hero is right out of feudal Japan, with his honor-bound "only vengeance matters" ethics, and his short clipped way of speaking with an accent that doesn't belong in Scotland. His fighting style is completely out of place and would be laughably ineffective in real life. Good thing he learned to hold his sword backwards, otherwise he'd have killed all the baddies twice as fast and the movie might have been tempted to run at a normal pace..

No other characters matter. There is a "love interest" that doesn't really make any deep connection and only exists to give the hero exactly ONE dynamic character lesson, a trio of bad guys that have exactly ONE motive each, and a plethora of other characters that might as well be nameless as they don't do much else except perform all the basic necessary menial tasks involved in making a hero look heroic without trying too hard.

There is no accuracy in terms of dress, speech, military action, governmental oversight, etc. These things don't matter, only the hero matters. He looks cool and is a total awesome dude. The movie has to rock because the hero does. Right?

In addition, it was filmed in the "bleak style" that is so prevalent among stylized films. This means they removed most of the color. I have never understood this particular method of filming. Can the world not be bleak in its own right?

And lastly, the soundtrack spends most of its time being out of place. Sometimes it sounds like something out of a sci-fi film (mostly when the hero is spinning his sword around, complete with whirly sound effects), sometimes it sounds like moody atmospheric mush (mostly when the hero is looking stoic and heroic), and usually moves itself into the typical drum-heavy orchestral epic sounding stuff (mostly when the hero is killing lots of people while holding his sword backwards). There is no reference, or even an implied reference, to any sort of traditional gaelic or celtic musical form, melody or instrument.

This is getting long, so I'll cut it off here with a final comment:

This movie is so empty of substance that it's like a skeleton of ideas that are designed to be easily fit into any genre. Take this hero and stick him into a sci-fi feature battling the evil space barons that killed his family. You don't even have to change the soundtrack. Next throw it all into a pirate feature. It will work just fine, just need to tweak the costumes a little bit.

This movie is bland and devoid of any real character. Very forgettable.

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.

In 1066, William the Conquerer defeated the Saxons at the Battle of Hastings. After the battle, a brutal campaign of subjugation descended upon the Saxon people known as The Harrowing. Earl Durant slaughters 100,000 Saxons and rules The North with his sons Lord Artus and Lord Romain. Shadow Walker (Stanley Weber) is an avenging warrior. He is joined by Anna (Annabelle Wallis) and her surviving people.

The brooding violence is interesting. The plot, such as there is one, is a slow muddle. Dialog is sparse. In the end, there is little more than the brooding style and a bit of violence. Even the action lacks kinetic intensity. It's a lower budget production in eastern Europe and it doesn't have the grand size. The moody atmosphere is not enough.

"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.

More reviews here : http://opinion-as-a-moviefreak.blogspot.be

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.