Brajeshwar

An epic set somewhere in the mid twelve century, Balian (Orlando Bloom), a no-mission-in-life blacksmith is outcast from his village, as his wife committed suicide after their baby son died. At this time, the Godfrey of Ibelin (Liam Neeson), Baron came and ask him to come to the Holy Land, Jerusalem for honour, glory and protect it from invadors. He indeed turn out to be his father. Balian refused to go with his father at first but then conceded after accidentally killing a priest.

I heard the movie was being released worldwide on Friday, May 6, 2005; went out to watch the first-day-first-show. Kingdom of Heaven is a battle, swords and fights movie from the much acclaimed director of Gladiator, Ridley Scott.

Along the story, Balian’s father died and he eventually become a knight, and his father’s heir. He then met King Baldwin, who always have an iron mask on his face, suffering from an incurable disease. Well, he also bedded the king’s sister, Sibylla (Eva Green) who is also the wife of a power hungry nobleman, Guy de Lusignan (Marton Csokas), who really loves to wage wars, also a bit foolish too.

To put the story short, the kingdom of Jerusalem is in peace, after agreement made by the masked king, Baldwin and Saladin (Ghassan Massoud). But then Guy along with Reynard (Gleeson), wanted war so they waited for Baldwin to die. Balian stood on their way but somehow the decision of Balian not to agree to the king’s proposal of his sister’s marriage led to Guy becoming king later on. Guy went out to fight Saladin but his soldiers were already wasted upon reaching Saladin. Balian had warned them that Saladin want them out of Jerusalem, out of the water fed areas. Guy lose the battle. Jerusalem is attacked; Balain tried his best to protect but finally surrenders saving his people and he goes home to become a blacksmith once again. He even declined the offer from the king of England to fight Saladin again.

The battles looks very cool, very realistic, nice sequences, fantastic sword fights. Not like the hazzy battle scenes of Alexander. Balian looked lik a born fighter, good in military technique and even in farming. It keep tickling me that Orlando will concentrate more on Sibylla, due to his lover-boy attitude and look (remember Troy). I wishes that the movies moves a bit faster, had concentrated a bit less on long silences, seem to fall very much like the much touted but not-so-good movies, Alexander. The media advertizes the movie on channels as something more, even better than Gladiator but duh! it fails to do so. I can still get back on my couch and watch the Gladiator DVD time and again, nonthless, I will buy the Kingdom of Heaven DVD for archive sake and to look at the finer details chopped off from the movie.