Sigurd the Volsong It's Not
This made for television video, loosely based on the Norse legend "Sigurd the Volsong," is not strong on acting or on following the legend, but it provides about one hundred minutes of sword fights and magic that can be found in the legend. The dragon Fafnir isn't fully explained, but at least he/it is in the movie. I don't understand why the writers changed the protagonist's name or his family background, and having Brunhild as the queen of Iceland was really a stretch, but if you don't know the Norse myth, it is a pretty good watch.
Just Not Much There
I was really looking forward to this movie, it has Kristina Loken and Alicia Witt who are 2 actresses I like. Unfortunately this was typical Sci-Fi Channel product, week story and not much to keep my interest up. I did make it to the end of the movie but from about 45 minutes into it I was saying "just kill everybody and get it over with"...... It may be worth renting but definately one watching was more than enough. If you're looking for a dragon movie, there is one scene with the dragon, he's kool, but only for about 5 minutes
A very GOOD remake of Die Nibelungen
The region 1 version of this movie is called Dark Kingdom. Sadly, there is no true region 1 version of the full Ring of the Nibelungs. Dark Kingdom is just over two hours long and Ring of the Nibelungs is three hours long. You need that third hour of film to fully understand the story. I am a Nibelungs fan, I have the 1924 Frtz Lang version and have read a lot on this topic. I was very frustrated that the only region 1 movie was a butchered subset of movie as it was made. So I bought the region 2 Ring of the Nibelungs and converted it from PAL to NTSC creating my own region 1 version of the full movie which I rerecorded on a DVD. It is a great story, a story of a blacksmith who makes a sword, slays a dragon, gains a vast treasure, and wins a princess. Everything a fairytale is about. However to control the treasure the blacksmith must become the lord treasure's ring, the core of the treasure. But the ring comes with a curse, a curse that costs him everything in the end.
This movie is a remake of the silent 1924 version by Frit Lang, which had a special version of Wagner's music created for it. However, Die Nibelungen was a remake so to say of the 1876 version by Wagner, Der Ring des Nibelungen. Of course the 1876 version was not on film since movies had not yet been invented. That version of course required a stage and a live orchestra and so on.
What I am saying is that this is not only a great movie but there is a lot of history in the story. Even more than I have said. For example, Die Nibelungen was Hitler's favorite movie. It was the movie created by Frit Lang for the German people and decanted to them. An English author who set in the trenches of Wold War I fighting the Germans took the story post war and recast it with the main hero not being the German blacksmith Siegfried, but a Hobbit. What was a Hobbit? In Tolkien's own words a Hobbit was the lesser or little people of the world, i.e. the average man, the English, who saw the flaw in the dragon's hide and told a bird to fly to the men along the river (Rhine). And the man of the river shot the dragon and killed it, because of the Hobbit telling him the weak spot to aim for. That is Tolkien's answer to the German's dragon story.
When the publisher of the Hobbit kept asking for a squeal Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings. Where Tolkien expanded on the ring of the Nibelungs and made it into the One Ring, the ring to rule them all. And again the Hobbits saved the world from evil, i.e. World War II. Yes there is a lot of history here.
Tolkien is the father of modern fantasy and as such the Ring of the Nibelungs is the grandfather of modern fantasy. And I say to all Tolkien lovers (myself being one) and all fantasy lovers this is a foundation story, a must see. And it is a great movie on its own.
You don't get what is advertised in the product description!
The description when purchasing from Amazon says that this has a running time of 184 minutes...which is not correct! The one I received has a ruuning time of 132 minutes (that is from the back of the DVD case). Having seen this movie previously in it's extended version, I was very dissappointed when I watched this because there was probably at least 45 minutes edited from this version, and the parts that were edited were some of the better parts of the movie! That being said, the movie itself is pretty good if you like this genre! I would just reccommend that you try to find the extended edition. If anyone from Amazon actually reads this, please update your product description to accurately portray what you are actually going to send your customers!
Oh, FYI...if anyone is buying this for the sole purpose of seeing Robert Pattinson, be forewarned...most of the deleted scenes in this version are the ones with him in it! He is featured much more prominently in the extended version!
Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King
The movie is really good for the type of movie that it is. I have always loved this type of movie, Medieval/Fantasy/Sci-Fi.
The only problem that I had was that I thought I was ordering the 2-part, 4 hour movie, not the cut down 1-part, 2 hour movie.
But even though I'm disappointed I didn't get the extended version, I'm not disappointed in the movie. I loved it when I watched it on TV the first time a few years ago, and I love it now. And watching the beginning of Robert Pattinson's career dosen't hurt. He's adorable.
