"Arn the Knight Templar" Topic

Swedish made for TV miniseries, based on a trilogy of novels by some guy named Jan Guillou. I've never heard of the books till I saw the DVDs. Apparently quite popular in Europe.

Not very big budget. But as one of the better-known (over there) actors said, "Hollywood would, of course, spend ten times as much but not come up with ten times better." And he was right on that! The cinematography was excellent, the directing likewise, the acting very good all around. Even the script was mostly endurable to good. There are a few very powerfully constructed moments and the rest of it is very watchable.

I thought that the casting was of superior quality.

The armor and scenes are excellent. The hero can RIDE! And when he charges on that warhorse with couched lance, it looks deadly as anything. The archers pull their bows realistically and competently. The whole crew took chances that you don't usually see in combat scenes in American films. I saw arrows dropping around the fleeing horsemen. I could have sworn that "they" shot horses dead through the neck in that last battle, but it must have been CGI. Holy crap! The clash of arms and bodies was very fierce. I'm sure that stuntmen and animals were injured in the making of this film. It looked that to me, anyway.

Plot: simple, two-part, ongoing throughout. The politics and characters in the Holy Land were simplified in the extreme, but it worked as a movie, it held together nicely, with time taken up for dramatic effect instead of trying to fit in too much historical data and characters. With a few reenactors and horses, they succeeded in creating a feel of massed ranks.

Cliché story-telling, of course. The hero gets his girl, she gets her man, in spite of all the odds. Tragic ending, not unexpected, because it too is cliché. But it is well done cliché!

This "review" is very late, because I only get around to seeing a few things, usually long after they are released.

Thanks, Gunfreak, for the heads-up on this one, almost a year ago….

Wasn't this released as a movie a few years ago too. Pretty sure I saw it.

Damon.

The movie version is a cut down (gutted) version of the DVD six part full length miniseries….

a trilogy of novels by some guy named Jan Guillou. I've never heard of the books till I saw the DVDs. Apparently quite popular in Europe.

I've never heard of him either.

I've only watched the first part but was impressed. Interesting Scandinavian take on the crusades. The love story is heart-wrenching.

Watched it on Netflix was really good.

It is one of the best film impressions I have seen to date

I feel fortunate to have the entire series on DVD. Educational show, also, as I picked up some Swedish lingo thanks to the subtitles…

I'd like to watch the whole series, but watched the movie on Netflix and enjoyed it.

"Swedish lingo". Yes, I found myself trying to garner some lingo as well. Rewatching it several times would help. I plan on watching it again soon with my wife….

I found the trilogy about 2 years ago. I thought they were a great read although sometimes it seemed the author got obsessed with certain plot lines and flogged them a little bit hard when they were relatively unimportant. However, I would recommend them, the battle descriptions were good and the underlying story, despite the transgressions mentioned above, was good.

Watched the Blue-ray yesterday by pure co-incidence. Really enjoyed it. Female lead is perhaps better known now as the detective in the Swedish/Danish show The Bridge.

Pretty good, I watched it on Netflix last night.

Netflix had both the movie and the miniseries on streaming, not sure if they still do, I thought it was very well done.

Arn is a good historic epic.

The last battle starts really well, wonderful when the armies are arade. But sadly in the end all tactics are lost and they go for the braveheart style " lets all run and hit the enemies with our swords" no unit cohechen at all just a mob running.

Also the church seem to be to strong compared to high medieval Scandinavia. That last battle in the series. The victory was often attributed to Odin. So the old gods where still strong in norway and sweden.

I think I'd have a heart attack and/or cerebral hemorrhage if I watched a movie/TV show that accurately depicted an historical battle; safer that they maintain the expected 'everybody on both sides simultaneously run/gallop towards the enemy and finish with a giant outdoor barroom brawl' tradition.

The last battle was better than "Braveheart style", in that the ranks did not run through each other from the front clear to the rear. At least the front rank guys smashed into each other, violently. They knocked each other down. Once the fighting had been going on, the "bad guys" had been routed enough for the "good guys" to penetrate right to the upstart king. I saw (read into it) a concerted effort to push directly to where the upstart king's banners were, thus nullifying the superior numbers of the invaders. The success of Arn and his men wasn't overwhelming of course and they took heavy casualties getting to within weapon strokes of the upstart king. For a movie I thought that they showed that pretty well….