Knight work in Medieval

MEDIEVAL
Directed by Petr Jakl
Certificate: 15
☆☆☆☆

JAN Zizka is the Bohemian version of Robin Hood, a legendary fighter in the 1400s, a man whose military prowess and its application for the common good became folklore.

Zizka’s story is well known in central Europe and director Petr Jakl has noted how such a tale could draw on the current craze for Game of Thrones-style epics.

Zizka led villagers against the tyranny of the gentry, never losing a battle against huge odds, and showed an inventive approach to war.

We meet Zizka (Ben Foster) as he and a band of bloodthirsty mercenaries embark on a protection job. They have to deliver Lord Boresh (Michael Caine) to the King of Bohemia (Karl Roden). He has a letter guaranteeing the monarch’s safe passage to Rome, where he wishes to be crowned Emperor by the Pope.

But there’s a scheming half brother and power hungry aristo, Harry of Rosenberg (William Moseley), to contend with.

Zizka is charged with kidnapping Rosenberg’s fiancée, Princess Katherine (Emily Lowe), and what transpires is a series of chases, battles, kidnaps and rescues, all smeared in mud and blood.

A visually disgusting opening scene may have viewers groaning inwardly as they suspect they are about to be subjected to an 18-rated, cheesy historical set-to along the lines of Prince of Thieves or Braveheart.

Yet despite a cod-Shakespearean script that is bad enough to be quaint, a plot lost in the fog and stereotypical characters, you can’t fault it for locations, choreography and costume. For those who enjoy swords, horses, kings and castles, there’s plenty here.

We learn how in Ye Olden Days Princesses did not simply proclaim one’s love for one’s knight, and that was that. No. One had to be prepared to take a handful of maggots from the belly of a dead rat, wash them in an icy cold puddle in an icy cold cave, and then apply them to a wound caused by a huge sword slashing your knight’s eyeball clean out of its socket, before binding it all up with the hem ripped off your skirt.

Today, the Medieval period – before it was blighted by war, plague and famine – has been reconsidered, with historians noting an enlightened peasantry yet to have had their common lands stolen from them by proto-capitalist robber barons. Zizka’s tale is really theirs.