Paul Verhoeven's Flesh and Blood - Sept. 18th (Fr)

[The Limey]

http://www.amazon.fr/Chair-Sang-Fles...1158161&sr=1-2

Absolutely superb news as one of my very favourite films from Paul Verhoeven gets set to appear on on September the 18th courtesy of Filmedia.
This being a French release, this raunchy and bloody tale should be completely uncut. Rutger Hauer is a medieval mercenary leader who kidnaps a bride to be (Jennifer Jason-Leigh) and holes up in a castle while the plague ravages the surrounding countryside. In the meantime her vengeful fiancee (Tom Burlinson) is hunting them down...

Super score from Basil Poledouris too which rivals that of his score for Conan the Barbarian.

[The Limey]

Flesh & Blood is one of Paul Verhoeven's earliest movies, but it reeks of his trademark extremes of graphic violence. There's a realism to this movie you can almost smell. Plus there's some great battles with barrels of gore, lots of nudity, and some nasty and just plain gross plot twists. It's certainly not for the weak of heart (or stomach), but it IS a great movie.
Martin (Rutger Hauer) leads a band of brutal mercenaries in the plague-ridden Medieval era. After being betrayed by their king, they strike back by kidnapping maiden Agnes(Jennifer Jason Leigh), who is promised to Prince Steven (Tom Burlinson). They then come across a castle, which they promptly decide to attack and keep for a new home. They set about the task, while Prince Steven and his men rapidly approach in their search for Agnes.

Of course, Agnes begins to care for Martin, bringing the wrath of his former flame, Celine (Susan Tyrell). There's much infighting within Martin's group, until an unlikely discovery "blesses" the group. (There are many familiar faces amongst Martin's men, including Bruno Kirby and the late Brion James.) Given the time frame of this movie, you can expect accurate depictions of bloody battles, plague victims, and a few nasty rapes.

The great movies are distinguished by one thing, in my book: Attention to detail. Small and large, important or just background noise, the genius indeed lies in the details. And everything about Flesh & Blood is almost too realistic. Paul Verhoeven points his camera at some shockingly violent (and even unpleasant) things without a blink. While this may upset and displease some viewers, others appreciate the very graphic detail. Even when unpleasant, these details are essential props for a movie like this. As soon as the facade begins to sag a little...boom...what you're left with is Conan the Destroyer.

As usual, Rutger Hauer is completely at ease in carrying a movie. He may be the most underrated actor of the last 20 years, as he continually makes junky movies that are recommendable solely thanks to his presence. His approach here is to play Martin as violent and ruthless, but also with a (very) quiet nobility. (Note the way he subtly prevents Agnes from being raped...twice!) By the end of the movie, you really can't tell if you should be rooting for him or not. That's a good thing. Jennifer Jason Leigh excels here, beginning as a complete innocent who quickly finds herself in extremely...carnal situations. Her transformation is completely believable, and we can always sense her ambiguity between her lust for Martin and her devotion to Prince Steven.

Flesh & Blood (also known as The Rose and The Sword, incidentally) is a brutal and exhilerating movie that will completely immerse you in this pretty damn unpleasant era. I'm not saying I'd want to buy a condo there, but a movie is meant to drop you wholly into a story. Flesh & Blood does that wonderfully, and the movie will enthrall you because of the realistic and brutal violence, not despite it. (I mention this to warn away the weak-hearted, but mainly to pique the interest of the gorehounds out there.)

I'm letting you all in on one of my "secret favorites" here, so I pretty much can guarantee that you'll like this one. It's equal parts of Excalibur, Braveheart and Joan of Arc. Go search for this one and thank me later.

http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.ph...1&reviewer=128

Most of the books belonging to Fantasy genre tend to base their imaginary worlds on medieval Europe, often painting them in most positive light and portraying Middle Ages as simpler, kinder and gentler time than our own. This perception of Middle Ages seems to be dominant in popular culture including Hollywood, despite plenty of historical books that use another, more appropriate term for that period - Dark Ages. Although Hollywood had its share of films that approached medieval Europe with more realism, hardly anything can surpass FLESH & BLOOD, 1985 historical adventure by Paul Verhoeven, Dutch director known for large quantities of naturalistic sex and violence in his works.

The plot begins in some unidentified country of Western Europe in 1501. Arnolfini (played by Fernando Hilbeck) is nobleman who had been exiled from his city. He returns with an army and takes the city back with a help of cutthroat mercenaries, led by Captain Hawkwood (played by Jack Thompson). Those mercenaries get carried away while raping and plundering after the successful battle, so Arnolfini decides to get rid of them with the help of treacherous Hawkwood. Among mercenaries forced out of the city without arms and loot is a band led by experienced Martin (played by Rutger Hauer) who swears revenge on Arnolfini. Opportunity for that arises when Arnolfini arranges political marriage between his young bookworm son Stephen (played by Tom Burlinson) and princess Agnes (played by Jennifer Jason Leigh). Future spouses are to be introduced to each other during the hawking trip, but their caravan gets attacked by Stephen's band. Before Stephen can do anything about it his father is seriously wounded and future bride abducted, so he must again use Hawkwood's services against his former comrades. In the meantime, Stephen falls in love with his beautiful prisoner, while his band takes shelter in isolated country castle.

FLESH & BLOOD is the last Verhoeven's film made in Europe and it shows. Unbound by Hollywood standards of censorship, he filled the movie with incredible amounts of extremely graphic violence and gore (which probably didn't cause much problems with MPAA censors giving it R rating for American distribution) and equally large amounts of sex and nudity (which probably did). But large amounts of such scenes, and some of them might be quite revolting (for example, one of the most romantic scenes in the film happens bellow two decomposing corpses), isn't exactly gratuitous. The idea of Verhoeven and his co-screenwriter Gerard Soeteman was to present Middle Ages as times when the human life was short, hard and in constant danger of famine, plague and war (which would, in one form or another, hit protagonists of this film). Soeteman and Verhoeven argue that it was quite natural for people to make some sense out of their miserable lives by succumbing to all possible forms of self-gratification, even those that might be most deplorable to us who live in more civilised and enlightened times. Same goes for the alternatives that went into another extreme in the form of religious fanaticism. In order to present those times with as much authenticity as possible, great deal of work was invested in creation of late 15th Century costumes and props, and Spanish locations provide very good scenery. Basil Poledouris, author best known for his work on another quasi-historic epic CONAN THE BARBARIAN, provided excellent soundtrack. On the other hand, Verhoeven took too much poetic license with some medical issues, thus compromising credibility of the events in the last segment of the film.

However, medieval characters by being authentic created certain problem for Verhoeven. Since all of them were, from our standpoint, bad, it was hard to create believable conflict. Verhoeven solved this problem by setting the plot in time of Renaissance, when the old medieval world collides with the forces of science and enlightenment. Those who are familiar with this period of European history might find plenty of references to the people and events of Renaissance Italy - Stephen mentions Leonardo da Vinci as his role model, Arnolfinis are based on Medicis, Hawkwood on real life English mercenary leader of the same name, and Agnes is described as "Prince Niccolo's" daughter - reference to Niccolo Machiavelli and his "Prince", the book that seems inspired by Agnes' actions in this film. This conflict between Dark Ages and Renaissance is transformed in the conflict between Stephen, noble who represents law, order and civilisation on one side, and Martin who represents primordial human instincts on the other side. Two of those men are fighting for the love of Agnes who can't really make up her mind until the very end of the film.

The acting in this film is very good. Rutger Hauer, who used to play in many early Verhoeven films, has rather difficult task of bringing complex and not very likeable character closer to audience. His Martin might look superficial and not very well written at first sight, but in a relatively short time he must pass through various transformations - from loving father to bloodthirsty soldier of fortune; from passion to jealousy and murderous rage and vice versa. However, this role relies more on Hauer's Bad Boy charisma acquired in BLADE RUNNER than on some genuine breathtaking acting effort. Naturally, his job was definitely overshadowed by young Jennifer Jason Leigh. Her role of Agnes was one of the first in which she displayed not only her remarkable talent but also her taste for the roles of women subjected to terrible ordeals. While most of the male audience would appreciate her willingness to appear completely nude in front of the camera, those who appreciate good acting would be pleased even more. Her Agnes is one of the most unconventional female characters we had opportunity to see in modern cinema - young, innocent virgin who suddenly becomes forced to make some rather practical decisions and whose feelings take second place to her interests. Tom Burlinson as the third part of love triangle, seems somewhat shallow in comparison with Hauer's charisma and Leigh's intensity, but this is all compensated with great supporting cast where late Brion James and Bruno Kirby are doing nice job, as well as almost unrecognisbale Jack Thompson.

All in all, FLESH & BLOOD is not the film for the everyone, but those who are able to overcome their squeamishness would be awarded by one of the most underrated gems of 1980s.

RATING: 8/10 (+++)

http://www.imdb.com/reviews/262/26202.html

[cheez avenger]

Nice!!!!!!!! We need more pre-Robocop Verhoeven on Blu-ray!

[Drag0nFly]

This is a nice little gem. Here's hoping that is hasn't got forced subs for the english language track.

Wish "The Hitcher" would find its way to Blu-Ray soon as well. The DVD I had of that one was beyond mediocre.

[Inspector Tanzi]

This is a nice little gem. Here's hoping that is hasn't got forced subs for the english language track.

That's often a problem with French releases isn't it.

[The Limey]

That's often a problem with French releases isn't it.

The incidence of that does seem to be reducing though. Anything from BAC is still pretty much a cert for fixed subs though.

[wesslan]

Nice, this have aired on MGM HD before in 1080i so will be cool to see what they can do

[The Limey]

English audio confirmed

English

http://www.devildead.com/indexdbtop....=249&filtre=22

[The Limey]

Some details:

Release Date: September 18, 2012
Publisher: FILMEDIA
Edition: Collector's Edition, Blu-ray Disc, PAL, prohibited for children under 12 years
Region: Region 2
Video: 16/9 compatible 4/3 Format respected cinema 2.35 format BD-50 Film in Color
Subtitle: French
Content:
New high-definition master
Interview with Paul Verhoeven
A firebrand between two worlds: looks criticism of the film
Apocalypses of the Middle Ages: a historian facing Flesh and Blood
Making of
Trailer

http://translate.google.co.uk/transl...ed=0CDwQ7gEwAg

[Drag0nFly]

16/9 compatible 4/3 Format respected cinema 2.35 format

Hmmm...

[The Limey]

Hmmm...

The Google translation did its best....
As the release date is almost on us now, mine is on order and I will post my thoughts after viewing it.

[Drag0nFly]

Yeah, the Google translation is always good for a laugh. However, I thought it would be more accurate than, say, translating Japanese. Lately I've been trying to gleam some info about the upcoming Japanese release of "Heat". From one of the review comments:

Stamina heaven says:

I booked immediately.
Tonight I cooked red rice prices.

Anyway–back on topic. I am looking forward to seeing how this release will turn out. Hopefully it's decent and not with forced subs.

[The Limey]

Mine has shipped out today from Amazon-fr...

[The Limey]

- The Movie -
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Starring: Rutger Hauer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Burlinson
Duration: 2:06
Year: 1985
Genre: Adventure, History
- Technical advice -
Image : Good but perfectible. The master is not free of defects and the definition does not always sketch salient details. Some traces of compression, and digital noise corrections are also present. A rediscovery appears, unfortunately not enough to convince chiseled. Note : ... 6/10 Its : The French in simple stereo hurts. Outdated basic dubbing too forward, no effects, nothing really saves. The English track works so much better with a nice immersion and its harmony inevitably significant. Note : ... 5/10


- Features Blu-ray -
Publisher: Filmedia
Release Date: 18/09/2012
Format Cinema: 2.35
Origin: France
Tracks sounds: French DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0, English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Subtitles: French
- Bonuses -
Interview with Paul Verhoeven
A firebrand between two worlds
Apocalypses medieval
Making of
Trailer
- Critical subjective -
Film medieval not to put all hands, the first U.S. trial of Paul Verhoeven is an atypical work in the genre. Violent, raw, amoral, unhealthy, it describes a barbarism in the rough. Despite some old shot, shots, a scenario sometimes wavering, it is undeniable evidence that the scope of the whole exceeds some awkward directions. Rutger Hauer and Jennifer Jason Leigh are at ease. Interesting! Rating : ... 4/5

http://www.blurayenfrancais.com/blu-...t-blu-ray.html


The Google translation aside, hmmmm......

[The Limey]

For some reason, Amazon-fr have sent me 2 of these s instead of the one that I ordered and I have definitely only been charged for one. Oh well...
Review to follow tonight.