The estrogen-enriched production also includes the return of Game of Thrones’ Lena Headey as Spartan Queen Gorgo, aggrieved widow of Leonidas, who also swings a mean knife but gets considerably less screen time than Green. Heads split, breasts bulge, bodies slam and ships collide with authority. (Snyder and his 300 co-writer Kurt Johnstad penned the screenplay.)Īs fate would have it, Themistokles now leads the Greek naval resistance against Persia, and Artemisia aims to seduce, corrupt and kill him, not necessarily in that order.Īnd she’s great, giving Rise of an Empire some badly needed energy beyond the endless grunting and sepia-toned blood-spilling of the rest of the picture, which does manage to make good use of widescreen 3D. And although Artemisia is of Greek blood, she’s seeking payback against her countrymen for the raping and pillaging visited upon her family and town in her childhood, and for the killing of Persian King Darius (Igal Naor), the man who rescued her and trained her as a warrior.ĭarius took a fatal arrow fired by the Greek warrior Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton), an event so important to the movie, Murro shows us the flashback twice, in case we missed the point. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, especially one packing two lethal blades. Presented with an unworthy male, she summarily beheads him, theatrically kisses the severed noggin and then flings it contemptuously away. To say she takes no prisoners is like saying Godzilla doesn’t have a calling card. This highly stylized account, drawn as before from a graphic novel by Frank Miller but under the direction this time of Israel’s Noam Murro, has a vibrant lead in Eva Green, best known as Bond girl Vesper Lynd from Casino Royale.Īs Artemisia, commander of the Persian navy, she dresses Goth but acts Amazon. The Greeks are once against vastly outnumbered by invading Persians, and here we meet the secret weapon of Rise of an Empire: women. Neither prequel nor sequel (maybe we should call it equal), it looks at the other Greeks versus Persians clash that was happening around the same ancient time as 300’s Battle of Thermopylae.Īs any history book (or Google) will tell you, this is the aquatic skirmish on the Aegean Sea. By the end of its run, it earned a total of 5.73 billion yen, making it the highest-grossing live-action Japanese film of the year. So the mere existence of 300: Rise of an Empire is worthy of note, especially the inventive means by which the story has been advanced. Directed by Shinsuke Sato ( Bleach, Gantz ), Kingdom premiered in over 300 theatres in Japan and came in second in its opening weekend box office with a gross earning of 526 million yen. A prequel seemed the obvious path, but then Butler went sitcom soft and Snyder opted for stories of super dudes in leotards. 18AĪ heap of bodies only partially explains the seven-year wait for a follow to 300, Zack Snyder’s ancient Greek affair in which Gerard Butler and 299 beefcake bros nakedly took on multitudinous Persians with only their swords and sweat.īutler’s Spartan King Leonidas and his men achieved “a beautiful victory” - not to mention great box office - but sadly lost their heads. You can watch the spectacle on the big screen during the release of the Superman flick Man of Steel, which too has been directed by Zack Snyder and produced by Warner Bros.Starring Eva Green, Sullivan Stapleton, Lena Headey, Rodrigo Santoro and Igal Naor.
The film, which has been directed by Noam Murro, releases in March next year. While the trailer of the sequel is as morbid and graphic as 300, the same cannot be said about the grandeur. It also stars Sullivan Stapleton as the Athenian general Themistocles. The film sees a definite shift in the protagonists, who were played by the alpha males in the original, while Rise of an Empire has two women in the lead. In addition, the film features Eva Green playing Artemisia, Xerxes' commander in presumably what is the Battle of Salamis. In the sequel, we see Leonidas's widow Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey) heading the Greek army against the mortal-turned-God Xerxes (reprised by Rodrigo Santoro).
The footage takes off from the defeat and death of King Leonidas (played by Gerard Butler in the film), who fought with his 300 Spartan soldiers against Persian king Xerxes' huge army at the Battle of Thermopylae. Warner Bros pictures has released the very first promo of the 300: Rise of an Empire, the sequel to the 2006 blockbuster directed by Zack Snyder.
0 kommentar(er)
