User reviews

This is a great movie. Great directing, photography, score, script (I really liked the way they worked some of the older Nibelungenstories like the Thidreksaga and the Völsungsaga into it), and acting (Karin Dor is great as Brünhild, the actress playing Kriemhild is *awesome*, and Etzel is great, too). Most reviews of the Fritz Lang movies say that these two movies are crap, but they are not, whoever says this hasn't watched them!

But avoid the movie "Das Schwert der Nibelungen" aka "Those whom the Gods wish to destroy" (or something like this), they just cut together the two parts ("Siegfried" and "Kriemhilds Rache") to one single movie. And if you are fond of the score, get the 2-CD release by Cobra Records of the nearly complete score for the first and the second part.

WHOM THE GODS WISH TO DESTROY 2 is the immediate follow-on from the first movie. With Siegfried dead thanks to treachery, Brunhilde now seeks revenge, but it won't be so easy as she is propelled into a complex political world in which everybody is out for him or herself.

I found this to be the lesser of the two films, although most of the cast and crew return for this follow-up; Herbert Lom is also along for the ride. The movie lacks a decent heroic lead like Siegfried in the first film and instead gets bogged down in overly convoluted plotting and intrigue. Karin Dor gives a fine performance, though, and the addition of Attila the Hun to the storyline can only be a good thing.

Whereas the first movie was an all-out fantasy epic, WHOM THE GODS WISH TO DESTROY 2 goes for more of an action-adventure template, culminating in some large battle scenes which are fairly well achieved on what must have been a limited budget. However, the film as a whole is a bit bogged down with its own importance, and just not as much fun as the first instalment.

The picture wasn't shown for a long time in Brazil, by the end of the 60's, but only for a curiosity, the title was translated to "Are the gods dead??", with quotation mark.

Herbert Lom was a very known actor and European pictures were (and still are) extremely rare on Brazilian screens, whose exhibitions contemplated mostly American movies.

As for the translation of the title, it represented a cultural expression of that time, by insinuating that the "pagan saga" remained within "german" culture, and their influences would persist latent and dangerous, those "gods" were still alive.