Well, I have just finished watching the 2-part miniseries on The SciFi Channel, “Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King” and I must say I was surprisingly pleased.
Being a Norse tale the location scenery was of course stunningly beautiful to look at. However, what surprised me most was the oustanding acting job that Kristanna L�ken did in the film. Let’s face it, she is gorgeous to look at but her acting talents in the past have been somewhat wanting. No so in this production. Her performance as Brunnhild, Queen of Iceland was quite captivating and her ability with the wielding sword and the fight combat scenes was impressive. She was exactly what one would hope to see portrayed as an amazonian queen from the frozen norselands. Kristanna was given the chance to finally show her acting chops as well in some fairly decent graphic emotional scenes that allowed her to show the vulnerability of the otherwise hard and stoic queen from the greater north regions.
The story of intrique behind the rise and fall of King Siegfried (Benno F�rmann) was well played and kept my attention for the full four hours (I DVR’d it and watched it all at once without commercial interruption – the only way to fly).
I can certainly see why many traditionalist and literary scholars believe that J.R.R. Tolkien got his inspiration for The Lord of the Ring Trilogy from this ancient Nordic legend. All the elements of TLOTR was in this tale, a cursed ring, wraiths and spirits, a hobbit type outcast wizard that brought to mind Gollum, how good men can be turned bad by lusting after the unattainable, even a faithful sidekick in the form of King Gunther’s younger brother, and the eternal love of a rags to riches king and a legendary queen. It’s all there in this one story of Siegfried, Brunnhild and the Ring of the Nibelungs; although this Nordic legend has no happy ending and there be a dragon afoot.
If you missed it this week, I have no doubt that The SciFi Channel will give it another run and if you can’t wait that long, “Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King” is available on DVD with extras and no commercials.
On the UNCLE SAM scale of 0 to 5, I give “Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King” a very healthy 3 1/2.
I missed it but will keep my eyes open when checking my TVGuide, but IMDB has it listed under a different name as well.
Ring of the Nibelungs:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387541/
Seems it gets a 3-4 out of 5 there too.
The Ring of the Nibelungs is how it appears on The Pirate Bay. I don’t get scifi channel here. Not that I would be found doing anything illegal…
Watched the Dragon king liked it but thought it was more in the lines of Beowolf and how the two hero’s slew the dragon well still liked the show
I found the version shown on the SciFi Channel to much better than that of the DVD that out in stores. The DVD version lacks many of the scenes that SciFi took the time to allow being aired. You would think that being a DVD this would have been the opposite, well go figure.
In either case, an exceptional movie.
Glad you liked it! We did our best.
We just watched (Rented) the DVD and was Disappointed at the ending, it leaves you hanging and you don’t get to see the battle on the ice either … nada! Does he get his queen? So much un-answered!
Does anyone know where I can purchase the entire 3 or 4 hour movie? *cough* DVR’d *cough* or even from Sony, whatever! My wife and I are just left hanging with a great story without … well … the story!
My email is daibach@cox.net if you can help … Ty 🙂
Well, I think that this is very bad tv movie. And SciFi is still making this bad mini series. Look at the Triangle, Legend at Earthsea and many others. They are just bad, bad acting, bad stories. I was bored to death with all three of this mini series. And they still are wasting money on such bad shows, and good ones like Surface or Threshold get canceled. Even SG1 will be canceled so they can have more money to wast on some other stupid projects. But they are SciFi, they can do such things and get away with it. Look at Eureka, big hype and bad show.
Sorry daib, but I don’t know the answer except to say that when the show ran on SCI FI you got to see those parts you said were missing on the DVD. It usually is the other way around…the DVD has those things omitted from a televised viewing, but in this case, I guess it was just the opposite.
Sorry dude. 🙁
In australia the DVD is under the name ,.’Cursr of the Ring.” It shows the fight on the ice and how they end up “together”
Sorry…”THE CURSE OF THE RING”
Yep, here in Australia this mini-series on dvd is titled ‘Curse of the Ring’.
I thought the movie was a terrific re-working of the Siegfried saga.
The scriptwriters (Diane , Peter and Uli) did a great job with the story, combining the older Norse Sigurd saga, with the later German Nibelungenlied.
On dvd, I think the Aussie Region 4 version is the definitive version to see.
It’s in PAL format and runs for 177 (PAL) minutes (which I’ve believe is equivalent to 184 minutes in NTSC format).
After watching this version, I shudder to imagine what has been done to the U.S dvd offering. The U.S. dvd version is about 50 minutes shorter.
I’ve heard of some of the scenes that were deleted, and they’re either vital to the storyline, or add colour to the tale. Why the U.S. editors would make such cuts is beyond me!