Ironclad: Battle for Blood | |
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Directed by | Jonathan English |
Screenplay by | Jonathan English Stephen McDool |
Story by | Jonathan English |
Produced by | Rick Benattar Jonathan English Andrew J. Curtis Jamie Carmichael Marija Djukelic Milos Djukelic Marko Jocic Nigel Thomas |
Starring | Roxanne McKee Michelle Fairley Danny Webb Tom Austen |
Cinematography | Zoran Popovic |
Edited by | Laurens Van Charante |
Music by | Andreas Weidinger Stephan Römer |
Production companies | Mythic International Entertainment International Pictures One Gloucester Place Films |
Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release date |
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Running time | 108 minutes |
Countries | United Kingdom Serbia |
Language | English |
Box office | $191,154 |
Ironclad: Battle for Blood is a 2014 epic war film directed by Jonathan English. It is the sequel to his 2011 film Ironclad . [1] The film was a critical failure and a box-office flop.
Five years after the events of Ironclad, the de Vesci family struggles with Scot raiders along the English-Scottish border. A blood feud begins after the Scot chieftain's son is killed in one of these raids. The wounded de Vesci patriarch, Gilbert, sends his son Hubert to seek help from his nephew, a "great warrior" named Guy de Lusignan.
This Guy is revealed to be none other than Baron d'Aubigny's idealistic squire from Ironclad. Unable to find peace after the events at Rochester, he has grown into a cynical, hard-bitten fighting man who makes a living in mercenary work and underground bloodsports. Shrugging off Hubert’s appeal to family, he demands payment for his services and those of his partner Berenger, forcing Hubert to hand over the last of the de Vesci fortune. To bolster their numbers, Guy saves a condemned murderer called Crazy Mary with a bribe, but end up getting "two for the price of one" when authorities come after the headsman, Pierrepoint, for selling prisoners.
Hubert leads the four mercenaries back to the besieged de Vesci castle, and they help the garrison beat back the Scot attacks. Guy's reunion with his relations proves awkward. His beautiful, spoiled cousin Blanche spurns him at first, especially after learning that he came for money instead of family, but begins to warm to him after he saves her from Scot infiltrators. Mary seduces Hubert and they start a secret relationship.
Casualties mount as the siege drags on. Gilbert de Vesci dies of his wound, passing his lordship on to Hubert. His wife Joan later takes poison to join him, believing the battle lost. Pierrepoint is murdered by Mary, who held a grudge against her would-be executioner. At last, the Scots resort to fire, burning down the castle gates and storming the keep. Berenger, caught outside, nearly wins a duel with the Scot chieftain before the raiders interrupt and kill him. Hubert entrusts his sisters to Guy before making a last stand with Mary as lord of the castle.
The Scots overpower Hubert and Mary, executing the latter by hanging. To spare Hubert the same fate, Guy recalls his honor and heritage and challenges the Scot chieftain to single combat. He emerges victorious with unexpected help from Blanche. With their leader dead, the clan renounces the blood feud and returns to the hills. An epilogue narrated by Hubert reveals that despite his apparent change of heart at the siege’s end, Guy stayed on the mercenary path, and went on to ply his trade in the Hundred Years' War in France.
The film was a critical failure. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 17% of 12 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 3.5/10. [2] Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 22 out of 100, based on 4 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. [3]
Guy Lodge of Variety wrote that English "rehashes most of his technical devices from the first film" and noted that the "production and costume design on the Serbian-shot production are economically restrained," though "Andreas Weidinger’s kitschily choral score is anything but." [4]
Not released in the United States and Canada, and with limited release in other territories, Ironclad: Battle for Blood grossed $191,154 in worldwide box office. [5]
When released in home video, the film made a further $207,835 in combined DVD and Blu-ray sales. [5]
William the Lion, sometimes styled William I and also known by the nickname Garbh, 'the Rough', reigned as King of Alba from 1165 to 1214. His almost 49-year-long reign was the longest for a Scottish monarch before the Union of the Crowns in 1603.
Year 1187 (MCLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar.
Alnwick Castle is a castle and country house in Alnwick in the English county of Northumberland. It is the seat of the 12th Duke of Northumberland, built following the Norman conquest and renovated and remodelled a number of times. It is a Grade I listed building now the home of Ralph Percy, 12th Duke of Northumberland and his family. In 2016, the castle received over 600,000 visitors per year when combined with adjacent attraction the Alnwick Garden.
Guy of Lusignan was a French Poitevin knight who reigned as King of Jerusalem from 1186 to 1192 by right of marriage to Queen Sibylla, and King of Cyprus from 1192 to 1194.
Albert Pierrepoint was an English hangman who executed between 435 and 600 people in a 25-year career that ended in 1956. His father Henry and uncle Thomas were official hangmen before him.
The title of Earl of Northumberland has been created several times in the Peerage of England and of Great Britain, succeeding the title Earl of Northumbria. Its most famous holders are the House of Percy, who were the most powerful noble family in Northern England for much of the Middle Ages. The heirs of the Percys, via a female line, were ultimately made Duke of Northumberland in 1766, and continue to hold the earldom as a subsidiary title.
Flesh and Blood is a 1985 romantic historical adventure film directed by Paul Verhoeven, and starring Rutger Hauer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Burlinson, Susan Tyrrell, Ronald Lacey, Bruno Kirby and Jack Thompson. The script was written by Verhoeven and Gerard Soeteman. The story is set in 1501 in early modern Italy, and follows two warring groups of mercenaries and their longstanding quarrel.
Clan Kennedy is a Scottish clan of the Scottish Lowlands.
The House of Lusignan was a royal house of French origin, which at various times ruled several principalities in Europe and the Levant, including the kingdoms of Jerusalem, Cyprus, and Armenia, from the 12th through the 15th centuries during the Middle Ages. It also had great influence in England and France.
The Saintonge War was a feudal dynastic conflict that occurred between 1242 and 1243. It opposed Capetian forces supportive of King Louis IX's brother Alphonse, Count of Poitiers and those of Hugh X of Lusignan, Raymond VII of Toulouse and Henry III of England. The latter hoped to regain the Angevin possessions lost during his father's reign. Saintonge is the region around Saintes in the centre-west of France and is the place where most of fighting occurred.
The Clan Hamilton, or House of Hamilton, is a Scottish clan of the Scottish Lowlands.
Clan Haldane is a Lowland Scottish clan.
Hugh XII de Lusignan, Hugh VII of La Marche or Hugh III of Angoulême. He was the son of Hugh XI of Lusignan and Yolande of Brittany. He succeeded his father as seigneur of Lusignan, Couhé, and Peyrat, Count of La Marche and Count of Angoulême in 1250.
Henry de Percy, 1st Baron Percy of Alnwick was a medieval English magnate.
Cherveux is a commune in the Deux-Sèvres department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in western France.
Alice de Lusignan was the first wife of Marcher baron Gilbert de Clare, 7th Earl of Gloucester, and half-niece of King Henry III of England.
Alice de Toeni, Countess of Warwick was a wealthy English heiress and the second wife of Guy de Beauchamp, 10th Earl of Warwick, an English nobleman in the reign of kings Edward I and Edward II. He was one of the principal opponents of Piers Gaveston, a favourite of Edward II. Alice married three times; Guy was her second husband.
Knight Crusader, "the story of Philip d'Aubigny", is a children's historical novel by Ronald Welch, first published by Oxford in 1954 with illustrations by William Stobbs. It is set primarily in the Crusader states of Outremer in the twelfth century and features the Battle of Hattin and the Third Crusade. Welch won the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject.
Ironclad is a 2011 British action historical drama film directed by Jonathan English. Written by English and Erick Kastel, based on a screenplay by Stephen McDool, the cast includes James Purefoy, Brian Cox, Kate Mara, Paul Giamatti, Vladimir Kulich, Mackenzie Crook, Jason Flemyng, Derek Jacobi, and Charles Dance. The film chronicles the siege of Rochester Castle by King John in 1215. The film was shot entirely in Wales in 2009 and produced on a budget of $25 million.
William de Vescy, sometimes spelt Vesci, Baron de Vesci, was an illegitimate child of William de Vesci and Devorgille, daughter of Donal Roe Macarthy Mor, Prince of Desmond. He was born in Kildare, Ireland. As he was illegitimate, he had no right to inherit any of his father's properties. In anticipation of this, his father had therefore entered into a number of covenants with Antony Bek, Bishop of Durham designed to enable his son to acquire the properties through entail. Early in Edward I's reign, William asked the king to intervene to enforce the implementation of these covenants.