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Reviews10
grolss's rating
I feel somewhat betrayed by the labelling of this film as a drama comedy and also by the ridiculously high rating.
Ordinary people's lives are rarely interesting enough to make a good film. That's why they are called ordinary. Nothing wrong with that. Most of us live ordinary and happy lives. But as I'm sure many of you have already noticed, the scriptwriters aren't queuing outside your doorstep, asking for your permission to write a screenplay about your life.
There's plenty of everyday drama in this film, but where's the comedy? There's plenty more scenes made for tears than for a smile.
Sorry, being a Scandinavian myself, I usually tend to like Scandinavian films. But not this one.
Ordinary people's lives are rarely interesting enough to make a good film. That's why they are called ordinary. Nothing wrong with that. Most of us live ordinary and happy lives. But as I'm sure many of you have already noticed, the scriptwriters aren't queuing outside your doorstep, asking for your permission to write a screenplay about your life.
There's plenty of everyday drama in this film, but where's the comedy? There's plenty more scenes made for tears than for a smile.
Sorry, being a Scandinavian myself, I usually tend to like Scandinavian films. But not this one.
This is historical fiction that touches upon true history on occasion. Giving Sisi a far more important role in the politics of the time than she actually had.
With that said, this is a nice and really enjoyable series. Nice costumes, nice locations and good acting. Both the mrs and myself enjoyed it.
If you enjoy historical stories , but feel the need to have them told accurately, you probably shouldn't watch drama series, but instead turn your attention to the many excellent documentaries you can find.
Compared to the Netflix take on the same story, called "The Empress", this feels like the version for adults, while Netflix as usual has teenagers as their main target audience.
With that said, this is a nice and really enjoyable series. Nice costumes, nice locations and good acting. Both the mrs and myself enjoyed it.
If you enjoy historical stories , but feel the need to have them told accurately, you probably shouldn't watch drama series, but instead turn your attention to the many excellent documentaries you can find.
Compared to the Netflix take on the same story, called "The Empress", this feels like the version for adults, while Netflix as usual has teenagers as their main target audience.
When history is exciting enough.
I don't mind historical fiction, as long as it's about making twists of actual history. Adding a character or a part of the story that maybe didn't exist, but adds some entertainment value and doesn't change the course of history.
Here they massacre both history and geography. There's is no place called Kattegat and never has been. It's a part of the sea between Sweden and Denmark, probably named by Dutch sailors in the 1600s. If there would've been a place called Kattegat it would've been on the Swedish west coast. At least 500 km from Uppsala. A journey of approximately 3 weeks, which they ride back and forth as if it was just around the corner.
In another episode Hålogland in Norway is said to be 300 km north of Kattegat, so suddenly Kattegat has moved to the Trondheim area. 700 km north of where Kattegat could've been. Only, it wasn't.
The real problem for me, however, was when two of the main characters suddenly starts feeling bad about a slave trader. Give me a break! It's just so silly to adapt moral values of the 21st century to the 11th century. Not that there's anything wrong with moral values of today, but vikings were slave traders themselves. In fact, it was probably their main trade (according to historical accounts) and reason for raiding Europe. They might have killed the slave trader, but only to get the slaves. To sell! Aren't the audience intelligent enough to accept that moral standards have changed? Or does Netflix just underestimate their subscribers?
The entertainment value isn't that bad, but I just wish that they hadn't robbed history of famous names, instead of just making up a completely fictional setting and set of characters for this story.
Oh, by the way, there were no female "gydjas" back in the days. Nor were there any large numbers of shield maidens. Sure, the odd exception probably existed, but they really were exceptions. There certainly were no female jarls of African origin called a Norwegian man's name ;-)
I don't mind historical fiction, as long as it's about making twists of actual history. Adding a character or a part of the story that maybe didn't exist, but adds some entertainment value and doesn't change the course of history.
Here they massacre both history and geography. There's is no place called Kattegat and never has been. It's a part of the sea between Sweden and Denmark, probably named by Dutch sailors in the 1600s. If there would've been a place called Kattegat it would've been on the Swedish west coast. At least 500 km from Uppsala. A journey of approximately 3 weeks, which they ride back and forth as if it was just around the corner.
In another episode Hålogland in Norway is said to be 300 km north of Kattegat, so suddenly Kattegat has moved to the Trondheim area. 700 km north of where Kattegat could've been. Only, it wasn't.
The real problem for me, however, was when two of the main characters suddenly starts feeling bad about a slave trader. Give me a break! It's just so silly to adapt moral values of the 21st century to the 11th century. Not that there's anything wrong with moral values of today, but vikings were slave traders themselves. In fact, it was probably their main trade (according to historical accounts) and reason for raiding Europe. They might have killed the slave trader, but only to get the slaves. To sell! Aren't the audience intelligent enough to accept that moral standards have changed? Or does Netflix just underestimate their subscribers?
The entertainment value isn't that bad, but I just wish that they hadn't robbed history of famous names, instead of just making up a completely fictional setting and set of characters for this story.
Oh, by the way, there were no female "gydjas" back in the days. Nor were there any large numbers of shield maidens. Sure, the odd exception probably existed, but they really were exceptions. There certainly were no female jarls of African origin called a Norwegian man's name ;-)