Tag: fortress

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Redoubt
(Värn)

Redoubt (Värn)

Director – John Skoog – 2025 – Sweden – Cert. – 85m

***1/2

Convinced the enemy will attack soon, a man turns his small house into a fortress that can provide shelter for a small number of people – out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 27th

Before this film came along, ‘redoubt’ was not a word in my vocabulary; it means a small, possibly temporary, building turned into a fortress in preparation for war. John Skoog’s stark film, shot in equally stark black and white by cinematographer Ita Zbroniec-Zajt (Woman on the Roof, Anna Jadowska, 2022) is about a man living in an isolated rural community who, perhaps influenced by old government pamphlets about preparing for war, images from which pepper the film’s opening moments, decides to fortify his house as a refuge for his neighbours in the local community should the unthinkable happen.

It bears similarity to the Biblical story of Noah who is instructed by God to build an ark prior to the forthcoming global flood. In that account, everyone else thinks him completely nuts and just lets him get on with it, and the same thing happens here – people like him, and he’s tolerated as the local eccentric.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

The Lord
of the Rings:
The War
of the Rohirrim

Director – Kenji Kamiyama – 2024 – US – Cert. 12a – 134m

****

A story of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth, set around 200 years before The Lord of the Rings – English language anime is out in UK cinemas on Friday, December 13th

This narrative is based on one of the appendices in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, (although checking my copy of the 1979 Unwin paperback edition, it’s not there, so it’s unclear when this appendix first appeared). The Kingdom of Rohan and the Battle of Helm’s Deep are familiar from Peter Jackson’s LOTR trilogy, as is the character of Éowyn (voice: Miranda Otto, reprising her role) who serves here as a narrator, the tale taking place around 200 years before the events in LOTR.

Wulf (voice: Elijah Tamati) and Hèra (voice: Bea Dooley) are childhood friends, sweethearts even. She is something of a tomboy, riding out of the small fiefdom – from where her father Helm Hammerhand (voice: Brian Cox) rules his Kingdom of Rohan – to feed a giant eagle, or engage in friendly, hand-to-hand, sword and shield combat with Wulf, at which task she bests him.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Red Cliff
(Chì Bì,
赤壁);
Red Cliff II
(Chì Bì
Jue Zhan Tian Xia,
赤壁（下）)

Director – John Woo – 2008, 2009 – China, Hong Kong – Cert. 15 – 139m + 135m

*****

As a warlord seeks to crush opposition in Southern China, its two kingdoms join forces to defeat him, with the deciding battle taking place at Red Cliff – plays as part of Art of Action, a major UK-wide season celebrating the artistry of real action choreography at cinemas across the UK October-November 2024

China, 208 A.D., around the end of the Han Dynasty. With the puppet Emperor more interested in talking to birds than the nitty-gritty of ruling his kingdom, his Prime Minister Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi) talks him into a commission to subdue the rival Southern warlords Liu Bei (You Yong) and Sun Quan (Chang Chen).

After a battle against the former’s forces in which his a loyal soldier is unable to prevent Liu’s wife getting killed but manages to get their baby to safety by strapping it on his back prior to single-handed combat, Liu’s advisor Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro) sets out to persuade Sun Qian to join them in an alliance against the aggressor.

Despite unanimous opposition from his ministers, who would prefer to surrender to keep the peace, Sun agrees to fight along with his frontline commander Zhou Yu (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and, because she insists on joining them, his tomboy sister the Princess Sun Shangxian (Zhao Wei).… Read the rest