Flesh+Blood (1985)

A band of medieval mercenaries take revenge on a noble lord who decides not to pay them by kidnapping the betrothed of the noble's son. As the plague and warfare cut a swathe of destruction... See full summary »

Director:

Paul Verhoeven

Writers:

Gerard Soeteman (screenplay), Gerard Soeteman (story),

Stars:

Rutger Hauer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Burlinson

2 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Rutger Hauer	...	Martin
Jennifer Jason Leigh	...	Agnes
Tom Burlinson	...	Steven
Jack Thompson	...	Hawkwood
Fernando Hilbeck	...	Arnolfini (as Fernando Hillbeck)
Susan Tyrrell	...	Celine
Ronald Lacey	...	Cardinal
Brion James	...	Karsthans
John Dennis Johnston	...	Summer
Simón Andreu	...	Miel
Bruno Kirby	...	Orbec
Kitty Courbois	...	Anna
Marina Saura	...	Polly
Hans Veerman	...	Father George
Jake Wood	...	Little John

Storyline

A band of medieval mercenaries take revenge on a noble lord who decides not to pay them by kidnapping the betrothed of the noble's son. As the plague and warfare cut a swathe of destruction throughout the land, the mercenaries hole up in a castle and await their fate.

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Plot Keywords:

mercenary | noble | plague | kidnapping | revenge | 

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Taglines:

A timeless adventure, a passion for wealth and power. Only the strongest will survive

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Genres:

Adventure | Drama

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Certificate:

X

Details

Country:

Spain USA Netherlands

Language:

English Latin

Release Date:

30 August 1985 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Rose and the Sword

Filming Locations:

Belmonte, Cuenca, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain

Box Office

Budget:

$6,500,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Riverside Pictures, Impala

Technical Specs

Runtime:

126 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Paul Verhoeven and Rutger Hauer had previously collaborated on five projects. However, tensions rose so high on this movie that they have never worked together since.

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Goofs

After drinking from the contaminated well, several characters immediately fall ill from plague. Plague by any vector has an incubation period of at least one day.

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Quotes

Steven: What are you doing in this filthy place? Are you looking for something?
Agnes: I read a book in the convent library, about love and black magic. There was a passage I found fascinating.
Steven: What was it about?
Agnes: A magic root. Mandrake. It grows in a place like this. If a man and a woman eat of it, they will love each other forever.
Steven: Did it also say why you have to dig in this particular spot?
Agnes: The nuns inked out that passage very carefully.
Steven: When a man is hanged, he comes and his semen spills to the ground. ...
[...]

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Connections

Referenced in Blonde Poison: The Making of 'Basic Instinct' (2001)

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Soundtracks

"Throughout the Years"
Composed by Charles Williams

User Reviews

Incredibly (and intentionally) sordid medieval romp.

Director Paul Verhoeven has always enjoyed shocking his audience with violence, sex, gore and filth. This love of all things sordid can be traced right back to his European films of the '70s. In Flesh + Blood, his English-language debut, Verhoeven delights in pushing back a few Hollywood boundaries and serving up a medieval romp that alternately intrigues and disgusts. While it is most definitely not everyone's cup of tea, Flesh + Blood is never boring.... and certainly shows the plague-ridden period in a more authentic light than most films that have gone before.

In Western Europe during the early 16th Century, a gang of mercenaries led by the charismatic Martin (Rutger Hauer) help a nobleman to win back control of his city. The nobleman (Fernando Hillbeck) promises that they may take loot from his city if they help him. but once the battle reaches a favourable conclusion he goes back on his word and banishes the mercenaries to the wild. Martin's gang return for revenge and discover that the nobleman's son, Steven (Tom Burlinson), is to be married to a virginal princess named Agnes (Jennifer Jason Leigh). The mercenaries kidnap Agnes and head off with her, leaving young Steven to lament his loss. Agnes is abused and tormented by her captors, and ultimately raped by Martin himself, but she gives the impression that she is actually enjoying her ordeal. Martin falls in love with her and takes her as his "official" lover, making a home for her and the band in a nearby castle. Meanwhile, Steven enlists an old soldier, Hawkwood (Jack Thompson) - once a colleague of Martin's - and together they plan a way of rescuing the princess from the clutches of the mercenaries.

Flesh + Blood is full of deliberate unpleasantness. Rotting corpses hang from trees; a stillborn baby is crudely stuffed into a barrel and buried in a puddle; gang rape reigns supreme; heads and torsos are impaled on lances; nuns are disfigured and murdered; a plague-ridden dog is dismembered and its body parts used for a primitive form of germ warfare. Verhoeven is clearly having a ball rubbing our noses in all this dirt, and he somehow encourages his well-known cast to enter into the vile proceedings with full-blooded gusto. The problem is that the story is not all that compelling and takes a long time to play out to its obvious conclusion. There are occasional foolish moments that mar credibility too, such as the scene where Steven's soldiers build an unbelievably complex assault contraption overnight (a scene which hilariously reminds one of The A-Team!), and the bit where Martin spends several hours in a poisoned well but climbs out uninfected, while other members of his band drop down stricken merely by drinking a sip of the same water. Flesh + Blood is ultra-violent, ultra-brutal and ultra-sordid, so you'll need to be in a certain frame of mind to enjoy it. In other words, it's admirable but not enjoyable.