Vikingdom: The Blood Epic … Malaysian failure

STRANGE, I thought. I was yawning so much watching Caucasians fighting on screen. I usually only yawn this much watching Malaysian films.

But wait, Vikingdom: The Blood Epic, is produced by Malaysian company KRU Studios, directed by Malaysian Yusry A. Halim and filmed entirely in Malaysia.

The action-fantasy film is the first Malaysian-produced film that will be released theatrically in the United States.

Yusry said Malaysians should be proud of the release of the film. “Despite the international cast, everyone else involved in the making of the film is Malaysian. Even the shooting locations.”

Oh dear, he may have to eat his words. From the fake snow-topped mountain backgrounds to the tedious dialogue laden with hard-to-pronounce Norwegian names and places, Vikingdom is a failure from the word “go”.

Eirick (Dominic Purcell) cuts through the crowd.

There may be a lot of hard-bodied and half naked white men fighting à la Braveheart but the film is essentially Malaysian in spirit.

That means that all the bad habits that permeate Malaysian films are present in this 20 million ringgit (US$6 million) flop: bad directing, bad acting, bad editing and bad lighting.

The hero, Eirick (Dominic Purcell of TV’s Prison Break), is a dandy-haired ex-Viking king who’s been living alone in the forest for 10 years. He knows his stink can be smelled from a mile away.

For a tough guy, he’s chaste and he’s been pining for a woman he knew for the longest time.

Purcell’s expression is as stiff and hard as his body, and his voice is monotonous.

His character can barely inspire confidence in anyone to follow him, yet, by deign of the badly-written script, he gets a bunch of nobodies to follow him on his quest to get a silly horn to fight the red-haired and equally stiff Thor (Australian Conan Stevens).

Eirick even gets Brynna (Natassia Malthe, who is of Norwegian and Chinese-Malaysian parentage), the owner and captain of a ship, to transport his sorry bunch of warriors on their journey to nowhere.

Bryanna (Natassia Malthe, right) horses around in her push-up bra.

Bryanna is smitten by Eirick, who, at first, fends off her interest in him. Bryanna is your standard film girlfriend but thank God the film shows her as tough, independent and a great warrior.

She and Chinese slave Yang (Jon Foo, who’s of Irish and Chinese parentage) make a formidable fighting pair, and Yusry takes delight in showing off her graceful moves as she takes out villains twice her size.

However, I take offence at Bryanna’s skimpy outfit. While Eirick is shown in a parade of colourful costumes, Bryanna is shown in only one outfit: a sports bra. Regardless of whether it’s snowing or hot, she wears her trusted sports bra (or push-up bra) at all times.

How will a Malaysian film deal with sex scenes? A kiss between Eirick and Bryanna is quickly blurred out, and the next scene is of them sleeping in bed after supposedly a vigorous night.

Vikingdom can’t compete on an intellectual level, so it’s filled with close-combat fights. Yusry loves showing white people knifing each other in the neck. He’s also prone to slowing down warriors in motion, just like Brad Pitt’s character in Troy.

Purcell’s impressive ‘body of work’ doesn’t include his acting in ‘Vikingdom’.

The editing is bad throughout the film but it’s atrocious during the fight scenes. The flow from one scene to another is confusing.

What can one say about the lighting? Our hero’s path to the glaring lights is sometimes blocked by others. KRU Studios can learn a thing or two about lighting by watching American TV shows, such as Bones.

Vikingdom throwns in every damn Norwegian name and place it can think of, and after awhile, you’ll just block them out and realise what a waste of time this is.

It’s a simple tale of a hunky country man who must go off on a quest, like Frodo in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, take along of bunch of people who will serve as victims, and fight an even hunkier man in a place resembling Stonehenge.

Like I said, the acting is absent, the romance and background are fake, and the fight scenes are disappointing. It’s just like watching any another Malaysian film.

-jeffleemovies.com