Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Gijs Naber | ... | Redbad | |
Lisa Smit | ... | Fenne | |
Huub Stapel | ... | Aldigisl | |
Derek de Lint | ... | Eibert | |
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Aus Greidanus | ... | Odulf (as Aus Greidanus sr.) |
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Peter Faber | ... | Sibod |
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Marieke Heebink | ... | Alemke |
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Sierd Jan van der Meulen | ... | Baby Poppo |
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Mike Weerts | ... | Scout |
Jack Wouterse | ... | Willibrord | |
Tibo Vandenborre | ... | Charles Martel | |
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Daphne Wellens | ... | Trude |
Pieter Embrechts | ... | General Focard | |
Søren Malling | ... | Wiglek | |
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Morten Rose | ... | Gund |
700 AD. Northern Europe is divided into two worlds: the Frisians, Saxons and Danes live above the rivers, below the rivers live the Franks. They want to achieve what even the Romans did not succeed: conquer all of Europe. They put in a new weapon to enslave the Gentiles: Christianity. They target Europe's main trading center, where the Frisian king Aldigisl rules. Written by ahmetkozan
Set in an alternate universe where Frisians speak perfect Holland Dutch (Odd considering Frisian is a recognized language besides dutch), the Frankish speak English and the Danish speak English is well.
It tries to tie together historical events, figures and legends that took place in the same period but often not in the same place. Then there are the long list of things that simply do not belong in that time period as they belong to the later middle ages like the weapons and castles. Much of how the historical setting is displayed is fictional or belongs to different time periods or different people.
This extreme artistic liberty with history could have worked out pretty well if it had created an actual engaging story. Unfortunately the movie does fail in that aspect by using all the movie cliches spread out in such a way that the halfway through the film we were left wondering if it was actually building up to something and basically got bored.
It doesn't help that the action sequences often made little sense where often the Frisians fighting would be surrounded and spread out only to suddenly be grouped together and victorious after a camera angle change.
It really is a shame as the acting itself was good (except for Frisians speaking perfect dutch without an accent), the imagery pretty, etc. There really is a hint of a potentially good movie in there if they had been more critical towards the story.