With Fire and Sword (1999)

Sadly Over-hyped

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

I had high expectations when I started watching the movie, but its background as a TV mini-series were soon painfully evident. Flat lighting, choppy editing (several scenes became confusing, as it was evident that something had been cut), and poor pyrotechnics. The battle scenes were OK, but not as spectacular as some claim. The explosions are just huge fireballs, looking like something from a poor WW2 action movie. The main male leads are rather good, but the "love at first sight" scenario is a silly cliché. Izabella Scorupco is pleasing to the eye, but not much more. The version I watched (the Scandinavian DVD release) has the Polish over-dubbing of other languages than Polish. This was the first time I encountered that particular feature, and hearing a male voice with all the enthusiasm of a weather forecaster doing the dialogue of both male and female roles was a bit distracting, to say the least. The scenes with feasting were taken out of the book "How to stage period feasts Hollywood style", but at least they didn't have food fights or dogs prowling the tables. It is recommended to read up on the historical background before watching, as anyone not familiar with Eastern European 17th century history will soon find him/herself confused. All in all, it is a rather passable historical drama made for TV, but don't expect greatness.

At first I have to say I watched it in German under the title "Kreuzritter 5", so there was a German dubbing and it was bad, which really destroyed some of it's atmosphere. I know the story and I read the book by Henryk Sienkiewicz and I really enjoyed it but I don't think that the movie could retell that epic story in a good way, especially the atmosphere and historical backgrounds. I think the costumes were really good, besides the beards and hair, they looked so artificial. The acting was partially good especially by Scorupco and Szebrowski but there were a lot of actors who weren't that good at all... There also was a problem of historic introduction, in Germany you don't get to know a little thing about eastern European history so my friend who I watched that movie with me was really confused about cossacks and tartans and all those people whom he never really heard of. And didn't knew anything about their relation to Poland or the rest of Europe - so especially this part gave that movie a big minus. The fighting-scenes were less than mediocre. The music could have been better too, it missed some epicness. It could be really much shorter cause it doesn't tell that much story at all.

When Jerzy Hoffman completed the filming of this, the first of the stories in Henryk Sienkiewicz's epic Trilogy, he was actually completing a 30-year labor of love. Although it is the first of the three stories, "Ogniem i Mieczem" (Eng. "With Fire and Sword") was filmed last. (This allowed Polish actor Daniel Olbrychski to appear in this film as the father of the character he portrayed in "Pan Wolodyjowki", the finale of the saga, in 1969. Olbrychski also played the lead in "Potop" (Eng. "The Deluge"), part two of the trilogy, in 1974. I believe he is the only actor to have appeared in all three parts.) After seeing all four films ("The Deluge" is so long that, on film as in the novel, it was split into two parts), I was inspired to read the books, and enjoyed them immensely.Maybe it's because I saw it first, or appreciate the more modern production values, or like the story better, but this is my favorite of the films. It instantly became one of my all-time favorite movies.If you love the tales of Alexander Dumas, then this film is definitely for you. It has swashbuckling "all for one and one for all" heroes, a beautiful princess, sword fights and battles, two delightful comic relief sidekicks (although one comes across far better in the book), a vivid and colorful assortment of characters (and what faces!), a lovely score... well, I could go on and on.Far better, though, that you sit down with a copy of this and just enjoy it for yourself.

Granted that I saw this movie in a Sydney cinema packed with Poles (including my Polish wife sitting next to me), the number of weeping expats at the final credits suggested that I needed at least some Polish blood to fully appreciate the experience. Objectively, O i M is a handsomely mounted costume piece with good attention to military details and minor roles (Pan Zagloba in particular), but is let down by lack of polish (no pun intended) and a number of unintentionally hilarious touches such as Scorupco's mile-long plaits and Daniel Olbrychski chewing the scenery at every opportunity. Even with subtitles, the historical narrative remains biased and confusing, and the whole enterprise is infused with an almost quaint Polish naivete and prudishness (except for the depiction of graphic violence, of course). Is it any worse however, than 'Glory' or 'Gettysburg' however? Probably not. 6 out of 10