Bruno Kirby, Jack Thompson, Jennifer Jason Leigh

A band of medieval mercenaries take revenge on a noble lord who decides not to pay them by kidnapping the betrothed of the noble's son. As the plague and warfare cut a swathe of destruction throughout...( read more  read more... ) the land, the mercenaries hole up in a castle and await their fate.

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64% liked it

3,297 ratings

R, 1 hr. 6 min.

Directed by: Paul Verhoeven

Release Date: August 30, 1985

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DVD Release Date: February 3, 2004

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Flixster Reviews (190)


  • March 19, 2009
    This was a movie I saw several times when I was younger, mailny due to choice restrictions (yes kids, a long time ago, around the time fire was invented, we used to be limited to what our parents bothered to record on a VHS tape. You know, a piece of plastic with actual tape insi...( read more)de. You know, kinda like your regular usb drive, only about the size of your PSP and less useful for show off). I saw it recently again and, although I am now less immature to the point of being able to discern a lame threesome love story as the movie's main theme, everything else around it still brings back all the feelings I remember having back then, every time I saw it.
    Understandable.
    I defy anyone at the age of 10 to watch a two hour medieval mixture of explicit nudity, sex, violence, plague, filth and blood and come out of it unscratched.

    Gladly, I didn't.

    So yeah.
    What I'm trying to say is I recommend this one to every 10 year old out there with some time - and innocence - to kill.
  • July 3, 2007
    This was the first film I ever bought on VHS and I've lost count of the number of times I've watched it. Everything about this movie is first class and Rutger Hauer gives the most charismatic performance of his career. It's powerful stuff and I'm always surprised that so few peop...( read more)le have even heard of it.
  • February 21, 2007
    Blood, busoms, and Rutger Hauer. Sword and sandals type medieval epic is somewhat obvious but still fun.
  • November 5, 2009
    Ive NOT into mideval movies at all but damn this was good
  • October 17, 2009
    In many ways, this is more medieval than many other movies. The davinci-esque war engine, the super black plague, are some of its faults. The fact that Rutger Hauer is either the villian or the hero depending on what side you take.
  • September 17, 2009
    Brutal film! Great fun to watch...however if you are watching on a laptop on a busy train like I did, you may feel a bit sheepish!
  • August 16, 2009
    One of the few films I would call a masterpiece. But that's coming from someone who thinks Apocalypse Now is the finest cinematic experience ever realized, so take that for what its worth. RoboCop, I would call a masterpiece. U Turn, I would call a masterpiece. Big Lebowski, I wo...( read more)uld call a masterpiece. Flesh & Blood I would call a masterpiece.
    it is a Machiavellian, violent, amoral and hypnotic adventure, indeed very brutal, with the peasants being poor and ignorant people, with dirty clothes, spoiled teeth, living in dirty and muddy villages.,.
  • July 15, 2009
    For an eighties sword flick, this is extremely well done.
  • July 4, 2009
    This was a surprise that I liked it as much as I did. While it has all the trademarks of a Verhoeven film (excess blood & nudity) this was made before he went way over the top with films like Basic Instinct. Hauer is really good in this and so Leigh who tops him in the fact that ...( read more)she has several full frontal nude scenes.
  • June 20, 2009
    This film is definitely off the beaten track. I enjoyed it a lot, and thought that there were some truly stand-out performances here, notably Rutger Hauer and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Some other actors and actresses that I didn't recognize were excellent. The tone is relentlessly bl...( read more)eak as befits the times. A couple of scenes put the times in perspective. One is where Agnes and Stephen talk and flirt beneath the hanging corpses without giving much thought to what we would consider today the horrid nature of such a sight. Another is towards the end, when one of the women has been captured (Polly, I think) and is being raped, and the lord (Stephen's father) simply walks past, barely noticing.

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  • beggpham2003
    May 21, 2007
    I have watched this epic approx. 30 times and still enjoy the raw vision of what the past may have looked like....violence, sex, religious beliefs were all part of this period..also Jennifer didn't look bad in costume of choice...Rutger as great as ever.......Phil

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