Any *good* swordplay movies?

Cafe Society
1

Man oh man, it’s hard to find a good sword movie. That is, a medieval-setting movie with some decent battle scenes. They all seem to suffer from a constellation of problems.

-In many cases, the length and breadth of acting range seems to be “AAAArrrrrgggghhhh!” Knights are seen as brutal thugs with bad table manners (which many were), but it’s hard to believe that they acted like uncouth brutes all of the time.

As well, mages seem to speak only in harsh gravelly voices and overly cryptic phrases.

-Stupidity of plot: Many movies are little more than a thin excuse than to have sword fighting. Well and good, but where’s the motivation beyond “AAAArrrrrgggghhhh!”?

-In many cases, sets, costumes, and plots are way too antiseptic. The miniseries Merlin was a prime example.

-Historical inaccuracy: Fully articulated plate armor was dominant throughout even the early Middle Ages? I think not. There seems to be not one director who understands how the mounted lance worked. And set decorators have a jones for tossing in any exotic furniture that looks good, no matter how unlikely. Yeah, a Persian rug in Excaliber is real convincing.

I can only think of a handful of movies that shine in the genre:

Braveheart (sort of)
Robin Hood (Bergen/Thurman version)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Yes, you read right. One of the top three was a slapstick comedy. This is what it’s come to.

So, recommend me some that are actually good?

Note: Anyone who recommends A Knight’s Tale will be run through with a 9th century glaive. Anyone who recommends The Messenger: The Joan of Ark Story will be chopped down…

…with…

… a herring!

2

How about “Captain Blood”?
Or almost any Douglas Fairbanks movie aka swashbuckler.

Dunno much about fencing or swordplay, but Errol Flyn and DF made it look good!

3

I always liked the sword fight in Die Another Day (yeah,James Bond).
Don Juan with Errol is my favorite movie.
But to me the best sword fight was the female fighting in Crouching Tiger

4

Oops. Excaliber. Sometimes spelled “Camelot.”

eleanorigby, good suggestions, but I’m looking more for Medieval movies than swashbucklers.

5

Scaramouche
Cyrano de Bergerac
The Princess Bride

6

Ah. Sorry about that. How about “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”?

I kid.
silenus gave my suggestions. What about LOTR? There’s plenty of hacking and sweating etc in that trilogy. (Don’t impale me, I’m trying to help!).

7

Saw it. Loved it. Watching it again, in fact.

Although I want to see stuff that’s a little more historical and less fantastic. A mage here or there is OK. I’d love a good version of the Camelot story, but have yet to see a really decent one.

Some people on a different board suggested The War Lord, as it’s an extremely accurate representation of early Medieval, my favorite period. I tried to watch it, but I’m not a huge Chuck Heston fan.

I think I’ll go see if the Cadfael Mysteries are available on DVD.

8

How about Kenneth Branagh’s version of Henry? There isn’t that much swordplay, per se, and it’s hampered by a miniscule budget (they couldn’t even afford leg armor for the French!), but the depiction of medieval combat is spot-on.

Pretty good script, too.

9

Henry V, that is. The first four Henry movies weren’t much good.

10

Arghhh!!!. Too funny. :smiley:
There are very few films that capture Swordplay or Lance work well.
This has always been a problem. I would look for Films with Basil Rathbone, he was excellent at swordplay. Strangely enough in one of his classic Sherlock Holmes movies he had an realistic duel with Moriarty but I cannot remember the Title of the movie.
A quote about Basil:

If you’ll accept silly and fun movies he was in the **Court Jester ** opposite Danny Kaye. An very good movie on it own.
**Tower of London ** I have never seen, but I am told it was surprisingly good.
It has an Interesting cast.

Jim {You’ll have to excuse me, I need to go fly a kite}

11

13th Warrior was surprisingly not-sucky, it’s earlier period, and based roughly on Beowulf.

Although if Braveheart is anywhere *near *your list of realistic stuff, I have to question your judgement, I’m afraid.

12

Rob Roy, always thought the showdown between Neeson and Roth beautifully illustrated the potential benefits bestowed by the advancement of (sword) technology, but I really don’t know squat about actual swords. Perhaps the weight of Neeson’s was overemphasized?

13

Remarkable how many Irishmen were in Scandinavia at the time, though.

14

OK, I’ll bite: why should it be unconvincing? There was plenty of trade around the Med even in the depths of the Dark Ages, and traders came to Cornwall trading for tin and other metals. Why shouldn’t they have brought rugs to trade?

Now, surely you meant the plate armour?

15

I was going to mention that as probably the most gripping, and least cliched, sword fight I have ever seen , and probably the best single thing about that whole movie. I don’t know how authentic it was, but it certainly seemed far more authentic than most duels - even if the two duelists were so differently armed.

16

Kurosawa’s samurai movies are pretty good at depicting Japanese feudal combat.

17

Jabberwocky was Terry Gilliam’s first non-Python film. It was a comedy and didn’t have a lot of swordplay but it had an authentic medieval look to it.

18

There were plenty of halfbreed-Irish Vikings – it wasn’t unusual at all for some viking warrior to carry off a woman in a ‘Danish marriage’, essentially concubinage. Duke William I of Normandy was born of just such a union, from his viking father to Frankish noblewoman, and his own son was born from William’s union with a Breton concubine.

19

That’s actually not inaccurate. The Vikings at various times controlled numerous enclaves in Ireland ( most major ports on the island was founded by Vikings - Dublin, Waterford, Wexford, Cork, Limerick, Arklow, Youghal, etc. ) and native Irish joining up with the northmen would not have been uncommon.

  • Tamerlane
20

Sorry about the mangled syntax above.

But re: The 13th Warrior now that I’m thinking about it, there are a couple of more problematic issues than the presense of Irish in Scandinavia & Rus ( again, not really a stretch ).

One is the issue of two-handed Viking swords - none have ever been turned up, though their existence is not out of the realm of possibility.

Much more annoying is the whole grinding down of a Viking sword to a scimitar/shamshir, as a) that’s impossible and b) it is unlikely an Arab of the time would have much experience with, let alone favored, a curved blade. Also the movie is plagued by a lot of horribly period-inaccurate armor.

I still like it, though :).

  • Tamerlane