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The movie is based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller on a historical event, the ancient Battle of Thermopylae at 480BC. It re-tells the story about a battle between the Persians under King Xerxes and 300 Greek Hoplites under King Leonidas of Sparta. The movie is touted by some as the biggest thing since Lord of the Rings, and by some, even better than it. After watching, it is my personal opinion that the movie was impressive at first, but on further thoughts it is really shallow and hollow to the core. There is really nothing much to expect because if you do you might just come out disappointed. The makers of the movie appears to promote the idea of a clash of civilisations, and a conflict of political systems. You know, that the last stand for democracy vs tyranny crap. There was some deliberate and special emphasis on ‘All of Asia’ made when they talked about the Persians, and there was even a scene of an Oriental looking guy – reminds me of Tsang Tsung or whatever from Mortal Combat – whipping soldiers of the Persian army forward into the Spartan meat grinder. |
Sadly, the Persians in the movie looks more Indian than Persian and it makes one wonder if the movie makers themselves even know the difference. It was everyone else of the ‘barbarians’ – Negros, Mongoloids, Arabs, Persians, Indians – in the ‘Old World’ against the last bastion of knowledge, logic and reason – the Greeks.
Aside from looking outlandish – for e.g. executioners without real arms but knife-edge arms used to execute Persian (or Indian?) generals who failed in their mission – and the Persian envoys and messengers were either pompous or haughty. The Persian army was also tactically inept and stupid, not to mention that the Persian’s elite troops – the Immortals – wore masks like ninjas, and the reason is because all their faces are as if they are scorched by acid. They even have a berserker in their midst which almost killed Leonidas, which sort of reminded me about the cave trolls in Lord of the Rings.
Even the traitor who exposed the path to allow the Persians to get around the Spartans looks like a cross between Gollum and the Hunchback of Notre Dame. It is such a blatant graphical attempt to vilify all of them and to portray the Spartans as the perfect, masculine men.
Xerxes, the Persian King, is also portrayed as a complete tyrant who thinks he is god and is utterly full of himself. It is also as if he isn’t afraid of the cold, and he seems to have brought an entire harem of women along with him to battle!! (Personally I think it’s a far cry from the historical Xerxes.)
That aside, the only other thing you see is lots of blood and gore. There are even some be-headings, but there is one very glaring mistake, because in the scene where a Spartan lost his head to a rider’s attack, there was no blood spewing from his neck after his head was severed. You will see a lot of ‘graphical’ blood spill when the arms and leg are chopped off, or when the spears and swords pierce the bodies, but you don’t simply see no blood on the floor where the bodies fell. Maybe the ground is just too thirsty and it drank it all.
For history buffs, you might as well try and catch a documentary about the Battle of Thermopylae (aka Fire Gate) on the Discovery Channel, if they do show a re-run of it. Otherwise, just watch the movie on a weekday – complete with whatever discounts you can get – because it’s really just hype and not worth $9.50.
