Writer: Dzamira Dzafri

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Watch this if you liked: "Thor", "Game of Thrones" and "Alexander".

"Vikingdom" was a solid effort that shone bright in various aspects of the film. With that being said, the film on the whole did have some unavoidable messes and it should be worth mentioning because this will definitely not be their last international film, and KRU Studios is just going to keep getting better.

Some of the most outstanding things about "Vikingdom" are the action and fighting sequences. Yes, it is a Viking film and yes, there will be blood and violence, but you will not be able to see fighting sequences like these in just any normal Viking film. The Asian influences are interesting as they incorporated Thai and Chinese style moves, especially with an Asian character in the mix.

The fight scenes included a lot of combat moves, and it was made to look stylistic and artsy, but it was also made to look wicked awesome on film. These scenes were the main reasons to why they should keep making these films. Hollywood might even learn a thing or two in here.

Going back to the stylistic and artsy approach to certain scenes, while some of them were breath-taking others looked very comical. The costume department needed a lot of work. While it did get good marks for adding in Malaysian style clothing and jewellery, some of the characters costumes were questionable and just plain hilarious.

It might have been fine that some costumes were flamboyant and whimsical but audiences couldn't really figure out if they could laugh at it, or if the costumes were meant to be serious.

However, there are some really great pieces for costume (like Yang's dragon coat) and they definitely did take a lot of time and effort to create every single piece but they could have made more effort to make some of the clothes worn by the Vikings to look dirty and greased up. The Vikings looked like they had an ironing board and detergent at their disposal because why were they so clean?

As for the special effects, it was almost embarrassing to be really honest. You can probably pass it to be whimsical and sort of funny but it was like the film itself was confused as to what it is trying to be. More than half of the film had a serious tone to it and then there were funny cartoon-y effects and obvious green screen use like what they probably used in the early 2000s, which is hilarious.

Another point that also needs to be paid more attention to is how the story is told. The script was on the line between poor and fair, because the lines delivered were boring, underwhelmed and sometimes a bit obvious. The voice-overs also didn't do much because it is difficult to pay attention to the ramblings while they panned over a rock.

While there were a lot of unavoidable flaws, the actors chosen were interesting and diverse even if most of them were Caucasian. Dominic Purcell played his lead role effortlessly and Natassia Malthe played the ass-kicking heroine, though she did play the norm of being someone's love interest. Jon Foo's role as Yang was both memorable and entertaining. He played someone who was sort of the cool and subtle comic relief, but he also kicked a lot of butt in other scenes.

Though there are some other actors that needed improvement as it might be a target of ridicule for audiences when they watch certain scenes.

All in all, it was a solid effort. It is far from perfect because the whole idea of creating a movie like this that is up to the standard as what we are used to in Hollywood films is overwhelming, and it might have been too big for KRU Studios to handle. But what is cool about it is that they did manage to do it without the film being completely unwatchable, so kudos to them.

Watch the film for great action sequences, cool zombie scenes (which is the prettiest, coolest and scariest part of the film) and a whole lot of man boob exposure.


Cinema Online, 12 September 2013