User reviews

Sword of Vengeance is shot almost entirely in slow motion. Characters perceive time differently from us, as they feel the need to dramatically walk, talk and stare at each other while posing at the camera. Visual is all shades of gray, while this might be stylish at first, it overstays its welcome by the fifteen minutes mark, by then the main character probably have taken his fifth slow-mo steps. Story is thin at best, with average runtime and majority of it is painful slow-mo, the film barely has any substance to offer.

An outsider comes to a village, he beats up a few thugs, makes a speech and fights tyranny. This simple premise is flawed by the first couple of scenes. The outsider dispatches people easily at one point, only to be jumped by a random extra and got whooped in the next. Considering that everyone moves as though they are in fashion show, it's borderline comedy this near superhuman can be even wounded, his plot armor must have worn off.

Acting is equivalent of cardboard box, but at least one could draw smiley or sad faces at a box. To be fair, it's not the actors' fault, the script barely gives anyone personality aside from one-dimensional extra from Vikings or 300. Story is heavily predictable, and the title helps by giving it away. There could be some underlying message of vengeance here but it's buried by the piles of slow-mo spam.

The fight is mediocre, either it's slow or shaky cam. There's barely logic in this as well, people swing and charge recklessly. Soundtracks are mesh between electronic and techno. It's a strange style and could've worked better if the movie had ordinary pace. Cinematography is different shots of a forest, some with all trees, a few buildings and its interior. The film tries too hard on creating cool shots, it is literally nothing but slow motion.

Watching Sword of Vengeance is more like looking at slideshow of concept art, which may be edgy in modesty, but not for entire movie. Alternatively, one could watch Robin Hood in half speed or compilation of fights from 300, any of those should prove more interesting.

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.

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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.

The basic problem - what you expect ?. You know the recipe and the ingredients. You know the basic lines of story and the characters. And you know that nothing is real high or memorable. The basic problem of this film- the desire to be more than gives its possibilities. The recipe is clear and nothing surprising can be. History as pretext, dark landscapes, dark hero, fights and fights, few drops of love story. Seems enough. But the desire to say all seems the not very inspired option.

this is not a movie. it is a collection of scenes a real movie would have, without any decent connection between them. sure it has flashy action, and even the very predictable "the hero gets to bang the blond chick", but there are no real characters. where in a movie scenes are tied together into a story, this "thing" has no story. just a collection of hack and slash, where somehow a handful of undisciplined Saxon farmers manage to beat a well trained army.

also they pretend to be pagans, while england was already converted to the false Christian god 4 centuries before the battle of Hastings. also they were no Saxons, they were Anglo-Saxons. which basically is a Christian who has stolen pagan culture, amongst others.

the only way this movie can be enjoyable, is if you are very drunk or stoned...

The Vikings TV series seems to be spinning off a sub genre of 1000 AD action shows. At least that is how I see this one. Cross Ragnar with the High Plains Drifter. Distilled Man with No Name with a Ragnar L. haircut. Wish they had explained how a Norman boy transformed into a Viking bad-ass. Love the berserkers by the way. I like the style, the weird electronic score. It is more like a dream world than realistic.

The colors are black and white.

The landscape science fiction. Not even true to history.There were no stone castles three years after 1066!

No originality to the plot. Really it is the classic a stranger comes to town.

But that's OK I was entertained. I like it for what it is.

From the creator of "Hammer of the Gods", starring Stanley Weber ("Borgia") and Annabelle Wallis ("Annabelle"), the subjects of a ruthless tyrant's oppression discover an unlikely freedom fighter whose code of honor demands bloody retribution.

WellGoUSA has made a name for themselves bringing some of today's best martial arts movies to American audiences. This time they took a slightly different approach and are releasing a story of early England.

And in it, we have a great use of color, making the battlefield look hazy and depressing. The film as a whole is heavy on style, has great production design and some impressive sets. Some of the style is conveyed through slow-motion walking we probably did not need, and which may add a few minutes to the run time.

There is an interesting score, very electronic and not at all what you might expect from a film set one thousand years ago. Those women warriors? Not sure that is remotely accurate in a historical sense. And, as much as equality is a good thing, it does not trump reality...

And then, sadly, there is not much of a plot or character development, meaning it has very little that will be memorable. The film still deserves a slightly better than average rating simple because it looks so darn good, but it has little of real meat to offer people. Audiences will likely consider this a dud: all gunpowder and no bang.

If you are going to base a story on a historical event at least make an effort to get the facts right. Yes I know there is the usual disclaimer in the credits but:

1. Bad start. In the opening intro it says William the Conquerer ordered "The Harrowing" of the North. No, it was called "The Harrying of the North" in 1069/70.

2. There were no stone castles with concentric walls and round towers. The Normans built "Motte and Bailey" Castles eg A large mound with wooden fortifications surrounded by a wooden curtain wall. The Tower of London (known as "The White Tower) was built after the period of this film and all stone castle followed this. They all had square towers for the next 150 or so years.

3. In the film the soldiers appear to be dressed in silver foil instead of mail. They look like turkeys before the oven. I know real mail is expensive but really!!

Nice try Messrs. Weedon,Read and Unthank - 2/10 Must try better next time. History is far too important to be treated like this. Perhaps a true telling of the Norman Conquest itself?!! But can we trust you?

As for the lighting, music and acting. It's all about the story!!!

This film seems as though a bunch of film students finished school and had a go at making a movie utilizing their favorite director's cinematic techniques, without nailing any of them. The sound department used every clichéd spooky sound effect they could - even when just a bowl of soup was being poured. Oooh! Creepy gruel, which must have been awesome because the main character was so engrossed in it he didn't see a tribe of warriors walk up and stand in front of him. Probably couldn't hear them because of all the creepy music again. The set and costumes were fine, the script? Well, there wasn't one really. Just characters you couldn't care less about fighting a bit, looking pensive in their dark filtered shot.

"The God's can no longer wait." When an evil ruler begins to oppress the land the is only one man that can fight back and restore peace. The fighter they find only wants one thing...blood. This is a hard movie to review. First of all, this is not really my type of movie. I have never been a big fan of the mid-evil genre and wasn't a huge fan of Hammer of the Gods so I wasn't really expecting much from this. All that said there was one thing that was really distracting and hard to get past. In the movie 300, during the fight scenes the camera slows down and speeds up so much that it takes you out of the movie. In this movie, they slow down the fighting...but never speed it back up. This may seem like a little thing but when it's overused it becomes far too distracting for you to focus on what is happening in the movie. I do have to say that although the movie seemed pretty low budget, the use of the sepia-like filter made it seem like the movie has made for more than it was. Overall, if you liked Hammer of the Gods you will most likely like this one as well. As for me, the technical issues were too much for me to get past. I give this a C.

I like revenge films and medieval films, but this one was surprisingly bad. The lead "hero" character doesn't talk much and, rather than coming off as mysterious, he just appears uncharismatic and dull. Not much of a story at all. Certainly nothing we haven't seen before. The fight scenes are serviceable, but again, nothing new. The director overuses slow motion.

And what was up with the color grading? This is the worst color grading I've ever seen. The whole movie is so desaturated that it appears to be almost black and white.

The sets are amateurish and cheap looking. About 90% of the movie takes place in a few muddy fields.

I can't believe a movie like this managed to get as much star power as it did: Karel Roden, Annabelle Wallis and Ed Skrein have all been in better movies. Seriously, they must have blown their entire budget on those three, because it certainly wasn't used for costumes or sets or (more importantly) writers...

Sword of Vengeance relies in large part on impressive visual elements to carry the film. That is not, however, necessarily a bad thing.

The director utilizes chiaroscuro, a technique that utilizes strong contrasts between light and dark throughout Sword of Vengeance. The result is a film imbued with a dark, menacing and rather stark feel. This aptly reflects post 1066 Britain. A world of drastic change and no small measure of oppression from the nations new rulers, the Normans.

Accompanying the strong visuals is a well synced, if at times annoying, electronic sound track.It suits the film but its intentionally jarring qualities are at times over stated.

What is by contrast, not well emphasized is the story line. The story is kept vague, I suspect quite intentionally, to reflect a lone stranger, action flick, reminiscent of the lone cowboy genre that Clint Eastwood is famous for. The main character is mysterious, brooding type who remains mostly, silent, throughout the film.

Indeed, there is not a lot of dialogue from any of the cast which actually works in this films favour. Its action driven and you get to know the characters, as the old saying goes, by their actions not their words. The fight scenes that are found throughout this title, are well choreographed with a feral, bloody quality. Certainly, this is not a film for the squeamish.

In summary Sword of Vengeance is a well rounded action film. Visuals aside its arguably very forgettable but at the same time its manages something that is quite difficult. A film that heavily exploits visual elements in place of dialogue and still succeeds in engaging the viewer. Seven out of ten from me.

Lets split this movie into 2 halves.

The first half, looks stylish and moody but tries way to hard to be cool. This cool-ness gets in the way of character development and the character isn't cool enough and not badass enough.

Second half, actually much better, some of the fights are good (particularly against the Beserkers) and the drama improves ( a little).

Overall though it doesn't quite make it and I love this genre so I was hoping it would bring it home.

It makes no sense to me that this movie has such a low average rating on IMDb.

The cinematography is excellent, the direction is good and the acting is fine. There is never a dull moment from beginning to end. The fight choreography is very good, and the costumes are realistic and accurate for the time in history.

The hero's love interest played by Annabelle Wallis is very beautiful and is the ideal person to play her character, and Stanley Weber was likewise perfect for his role as the Shadow Walker.

I highly recommend this movie to anyone who likes historical action dramas. It's not overly long, and it's entertaining throughout.

From http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/normans/invasion_threat_01.shtm l

"To prevent future raids and crush internal resistance, William I adopted a 'scorched earth' policy known as the 'harrowing of the north', and castles appeared throughout England to garrison a resident military force."

There is not much to say about this tedious film. The production values are all there: it is well shot and the battles scenes are well managed – but there is little else to this film. The cast is competent, and we now have to have a fierce and beautiful young woman in these stories; an essential ingredient these days. The film's greatest weakness, in fact the great error in the production, is the excessive use of slow motion. It is self indulgent and infuriating; all because the director wanted to make it all seem so meaningful, when all it did was make it so dull. Of course, it may have been that he wanted to turn a 60 minute film into a longer one. The motivation is unclear.