Kingdom of Heaven

Kingdom of Heaven is a movie released on May 6, 2005, written by William Monahan, and directed and produced by Ridley Scott. It stars Orlando Bloom, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons, David Thewlis, Marton Csokas, Brendan Gleeson, Alexander Siddig, Ghassan Massoud, Edward Norton, Jon Finch, Michael Sheen and Liam Neeson. The story deals with the Crusades of the 12th century, and involves an Artificier and Enginer (that is, someone who makes siege engines), serving as a village blacksmith who goes on to aid the city of Jerusalem in its defense against the great Islamic leader Saladin, who battles to reclaim the city from the Christians. The script is loosely based on the life of Balian of Ibelin. This is not a movie for bedtime, not even after dinner. A lot of blood was shed and many tears. One should at least read the wikipedia version of historical account before seeing the film; otherwise, it is too easy to be confused. I feel like watching an English version of 三国演义 , with more blood, lust and frustration. The story is about the failure of the third Crusades in 12th century and is a mixture of history and fiction. To a large extent, it tried to paint a pinky version of Muslim and Christian relationship then which was criticized by many historians. The director defended himself by stating that he “sees this portrayal as being a contemporary look at the history. He argued that peace and brutality are concepts relative to one's own experience, and since our society today is so far removed from the brutal times in which the movie takes place, he told the story in a way that he felt was true to the source material yet was more accessible to a modern audience. In other words that the "peace" that existed was exaggerated to fit our ideas of what such a peace would be, because in the time it was a relative lull in Muslim-Christian violence during this period compared to the standards of the day.” It seems to me a real good explanation of WIKIALITY, a history is a story the majority agree upon. Orlando Bloom was too young and innocent to play the role. Even Jeremy Irons was a dread in the film. On the other hand, the Syrian actor Ghassan Massoud was praised for his portrayal of Saladin, described by The New York Times as "cool as a tall glass of water." The Americans are too eager to tell a story they don’t understand, to glory a history they don’t possess, and to make the history a light and portable version. The film is definitely better than Troy or Alexander, but it is not a work of art which we are looking for, a work with quality equal to The Name of the Rose.