Cheap Ancient Warriors: Volume 1 (DVD) Price

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Customer Reviews of Ancient Warriors: Volume 1

Good series, not great but pretty good
I purchased this series because i heard some of the more historically accurate re-enactment groups participated in it. My only gripe was that they used the romano-british (late roman) group for the attila the hun series! Although the roman defenders may have been closer to those facing attila (romano-gallic army) attila forces were a little harder to accept. They tried to compensate by wearing hun hats and using more scale and lamallar armors (used by the romano british as well since the late roman army adopted horse archer bows, tactics, armor, etc into its ranks). Basically it was the romano british group fighting itself... <
>Overall it was well done with the celts, zulu, spartans, sioux and ninja being the strong episodes. I especially enjoyed the celts (makes you wonder if the celts, by attacking rome itself, were in part responsible for the creation of the army that would come back to conquer them), sioux (good demonsatration of cooing) and zulu. With most of the series you get alot of shots of feet or parts of warriors going by instead of the overall picture of whats going on which can be annoying after awhile. i guess to make the most out of what they had. They did not spare the realites of the time either some of which are very harsh and to some shocking. computer animation is primitive at best but at least its there. <
>Good series! <
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excellent documentry series
Unfortunately a number of people have placed bad reviews for a completely unrelated movie on this listing. I gave it five stars to compensate for this, but honestly I would not have anything negative to say anyway (except perhaps that I wish the episodes where longer and that they made more of them). All the episodes are masterfully crafted and engrossing. The use of a singluar narrative following one character while overviewing their entire warrior culture was a great idea. It personolizes otherwise abstract historical occasions and gives you a feeling for what it would have really been like. A few episodes do stick out, such as "The Spartans" because it's simply such a great and inspiring story, and "The Ninja" (just because ninjas are so bloody cool). I hate to be a boring cliche, but this series is indeed both educational and entertaining. You won't be disappointed.

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DON'T LET THE TITLE ENTICE YOU
...because the ANCIENT WARRIORS have little to do in this truly terrible movie. Former bodybuilder Franco Columbu has managed to make Arnold Schwarzenegger look like Laurence Olivier. His "performance" is one of the worst acting leads on celluloid. He plays a mercenary whose father is killed during a botched operation. A year later, he moans around the house about his father's death and volunteers at a school for retarded children, where his daughter is one of the students. Under the inept direction of Walter von Huene, this poor young lass comes across as comical; whether she's truly retarded or not, the script doesn't seem to want to do anything but exploit her "gift." Anyway, Columbu finds out that a local mining operation is really a covert operation for the making of chemical warfare, under the auspices of long time bad man Richard Lynch. Lynch, who is usually a capable performer, spends most of his time coughing into a hanky, as he has some kind of mysterious disease that is going to kill him. Enter the "ancient warrior" theme: supposedly they have some magic potion that will cure him but it's buried somewhere deep in the mines. His son, played by Andy Mackenzie, tries hard to be a Mike or Kirk Douglas clone but only manages to come across as badass and bad actor. A chunky Daniel Baldwin plays Columbu's best friend and fellow mercenary who calls the boys (and girl) together to help Franco stop the nefarious Lynch and Mackenzie. Iris Peynado looking like the latest release from a dog kennel plays the vixenish, somewhat asexual psychic who is aiding Lynch. The movie moves at an incredibly lethargic pace, the fight scenes are staged very amateurishly and the whole thing is really an embarassment to all involved. I don't think ancient warriors themselves could have saved this catastrophic misfire.