Royal Hunt
Added 3/10/2010
'The Royal Hunt of the Sun' is an excellent movie, with both Robert Shaw and especially Christopher Plummer, as the Inca King, giving great performances.
It also puts the spotlight on our appalling European attitude and treatment, towards people we ignorantly consider inferior, be that the Blacks, Indians, Asians etc.
And, as with most conquering European Powers, the evil church was always with them, pontificating and destroying indigenous cultures
as 'love thy neighbor' Christians.
The film holds a mirror in front of us as well as a rousing, dramatic
piece of movie entertainment. Four out of five stars.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Complete Waste of Money & Film
Added 2/24/2009
Horrible movie throughout. A nothing screenplay with nothing roles.
What a waste of the fine talent of young Leonard Whiting...he deserved
a much better role in a much better movie, as a follow-up to his superior performance in the role of Romeo in Franco Zeffireilli's ROMEO & JULIET.
0 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Interesting Drama / Wretched DVD
Added 4/6/2008
This is an astonishingly bad transfer to DVD for a film that I don't believe is in the public domain -- it's very tough to get through. It's a pity, as this is still an intriguing take on religion and imperialism. Shaw's performance as Pizzaro is both commanding yet convincingly conveys his credulousness in his new surroundings. Plummer as the Incan ruler with his petulant keening is more of a distraction. He sounds like Olivier and looks like Cher.
If this were ever restored, I'd give it another go.
1 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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Would Be Fantastic in scratchy B&W
Added 9/21/2007
Superb story, superb acting, superb inspiration, superb mental stimulation. If this movies was grainy and snapped, crackled and popped like one of those 1920s talkies, it would still be among the very best in my collection. I've watched this movie many times, and have never noticed the picture quality. Criticising this movie on the basis of picture quality is like finding your favorite book less and less interesting because of the growing number of rips, stains and earmarks. There's not enough stars in this rating to give it what it deserves.
1 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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Excellent film - or at least it was originally
Added 11/27/2004
Others have mentioned the poor picture quality of this DVD - and it certainly seems to have been mastered from an NTSC video. The quality is therefore nothing to get excited about (the colours seeming weak) - but it's OK - and at least the film is in scope. However, this is not the film I originally saw in london in 1969 - which was approximately two hours long. The present version on DVD is getting on for half an hour shorter - and is the worse for the cuts. It may be that this abridged print was the only version ever shown in the USA ... in which case it is hoped someone can locate a full length print - and re-master it digitally.
5 out of 6 people found this helpful.
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Magnificent
Added 10/27/2004
This film adaptation of Peter Shaffer's play does complete justice to the intelligence and power of the original. While staying very close to historical truth, it is at the same time a timeless and haunting meditation on cultural differences, religion, loyalty, greed, power and friendship. The acting is absolutely superb: Robert Shaw's Pizarro weaves strength, doubt, lust for adventure and riches, and cunning combined with honesty and involuntary admiration for the Inca god-king he has taken prisoner.
The top honors go though undoubtedly to Christopher Plummer and his arrestingly magnificent portrayal of Atahualpa (incidentally, Plummer had played Pizarro in the Broadway version of the play, to much acclaim). He is in turn, and many times all at once, supremely royal, candid, touching, god-like, child-like, alien, eccentric, visionary and always masterful. It is a performance of such power and beauty as rarely has graced the screen, and the actor himself confessed that this was one of the roles he was most proud of.
There is not much "action" as such in the movie, which centers instead on the improbable developing friendship and admiration between Pizarro and Atahualpa, their conversations, and Pizarro's increasingly adversarial relationship with his fellow conquistadores, who want Atahualpa dead and the Inca empire subjugated and converted (with the Inquisition overtones of "convert, or else"). Atahualpa stays serenely true to himself until the end - his conversion to Christianity before he is killed is not a renegation, but a royal nod delivered with a knowing smile to Pizarro and young Martin, who adress him as "My Lord" and beg him to accept the conversion in order not to be burned at the stake. It is Pizarro who is the conflicted one - between the Spanish crown that exploits him without helping him and the ruthless men of the church who accompany him on the one hand, and the peaceful and happy Incas and their majestic but curiously endearing god-king on the other, Pizarro's beliefs and allegiances are all put under question. His heart starts to believe in the man he has to agree to let be killed for the glory of Spain...
All in all, a splendid movie with a superb cast and raising some very thought-provoking questions. Highly recommended.
11 out of 12 people found this helpful.
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Complete Waste of Money & Film
Added 2/24/2009
Horrible movie throughout. A nothing screenplay with nothing roles.
What a waste of the fine talent of young Leonard Whiting...he deserved
a much better role in a much better movie, as a follow-up to his superior performance in the role of Romeo in Franco Zeffireilli's ROMEO & JULIET.
0 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Interesting Drama / Wretched DVD
Added 4/6/2008
This is an astonishingly bad transfer to DVD for a film that I don't believe is in the public domain -- it's very tough to get through. It's a pity, as this is still an intriguing take on religion and imperialism. Shaw's performance as Pizzaro is both commanding yet convincingly conveys his credulousness in his new surroundings. Plummer as the Incan ruler with his petulant keening is more of a distraction. He sounds like Olivier and looks like Cher.
If this were ever restored, I'd give it another go.
1 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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