Emperor

Feels like a Saturday afternoon action adventure revenge tv show instead of a historical drama. The film has pretty good cinematography, location, settings, wardrobe, and a good cast. But the writing is poor. It never digs deep into the main character and the then political situation of the time. All it does it name drops and ads cameos of historical figures. Unfortunately the film is mostly fluff and little substance. It really had a lot of missed potential.

They took quite a lot of liberties with the beginning and end of the story, making up details of Shields Greens life and completely changing the outcome of his fight at the armory. But besides all the historical inaccuracies, if you just wanted to watch it for pure entertainment, the script was a bit weak, which made it hard for the actors to shine. Even though their were some big named actors, their performances were average due to the poor script, direction, and sets. It was enjoyable enough but could have been so much better, IMHO! 6.5

I watched this film with no prior history of Shield Green and loved the film. It's very well written and the acting and direction is top notch. And about time a good Hollywood film is made that puts an action packed theme to a black historical figure- and yes of course it obviously takes lots of liberties with historical accuracy much like Braveheart or Last of the Mohican but the end result is entertaining. It's funny to see bad reviews just because of Harper Ferry and John Brown historical inaccuracy but it's a hollywood film - not a silly documentary so just enjoy the show zand you'll love it. The main actor is phenomenal and could be next Denzel and the supporting actors are excellent esp the bounty hunter. A solid 8

The one stars given this movie speak more of those reviewers than the quality of the film. I found it interesting and at times humorous. It's by no means one hundred percent historically accurate, but what film is? Ignore the negative reviews and give it a shot.

Great historical untold story, reminiscent of 12 Years a Slave, I wish it could have been longer to focus more historical attributes and heroes .