The Sci Fi Catholic Yak Module
The local reviewer explained the movie this way. Someone was watching the Lord of the Rings, and thought, that it could be much better with kung fu.
So, it is going to be major cool.
I expect to see your new kick awesome and butt kicking moves after watching this movie. we will have to get you some wires though. 
They had me at the bit with the bladed weapons floating in the air
Groves of flowering trees with the petals slowly fluttering down! (I know it's such a cliché but it gets me every time, from the first time I saw it in John Boorman's "Excalibur" with the knights riding through the apple orchard and the blossom showering down from the pounding of the horses' hooves on the earth - *sigh* the symbolism of beauty, transience, fragility, the ephemeral nature of life, big swords and manly muscular men hacking at one another - perfection!).
Butt-kicking going on fast and furious amongst groves of flowering trees! Jackie Chan doing the (it looks like oh please please let it be) Drunken Master reprise! A woman who can kill with her hair!
I could do without the clueless Western tourist/comic relief, but eh. Now, if only they had made the lost Western traveller a Viking or something like that... oh, man.
There aren't any Vikings around today to identify with such a character. When I write the review, I'll be just about the only person on the internet to defend their use of a clueless American high school student.
D.G.D., I will make allowances for your professional status as an archaelogist.
That being said, come on! Historical accuracy? When we're merrily trashing the laws of physics and biology, you expect us to respect history and chronology?
If Michael Crichton could get away with having an Arab team up with a horde of Vikings in "Eaters of the Dead", then I submit why not a Varang who made it *really* far out East?
Or at least a Scythian, or some one who could even semi-plausibly be argued to have at least a nodding acquaintance with the use of pointy metal implements of destruction (tell me you don't want to see a Viking battle-axe being wielded amongst the swords, spears and daggers. Go on, tell me).
On behalf of pale, freckly round-eyes everywhere, I resent our representation amongst awesome Chinese butt-kicking gods and goddesses by scrawny clueless high school student! I won't even start in on him being a Yank 
Just saw it!
Fuinseoig-I would not agree that Crichton "got away with" anything in "Eaters of the Dead"! That book blew chunks in every way.
Which is kind of what I mean, Xena. Crichton as an author - well, let's not dwell on that.
But! If he could persuade a film-maker that yah, totally credible that Refined Arab dude would end up wandering around Undefined But Vaguely Northern Place with bunch of big hairy guys fighting cannibal monsters, then I say: I want a better representative of Western Heroic Beefcake than dopey comic relief Whosis McNeverheardofhim in your co-production, Mr. Weinstein!
Fuinseoig--They made a movie of "Eaters of the Dead"?!?!? I was really much better off before I knew that.
I'm looking forward to the falling flowers--the "Excalibur" baggage is fine with me. I'm a little dubious of any comic relief being necessary in a Jackie Chan movie. But if we must have a dopey Anglo, I think a jaded French teen would be much more entertaining, or possibly a Quebec separatist.
The Thirteenth Warrior is the movie adaptation of Eaters of the Dead.
The first three chapters of Eaters of the Dead are based on an actual journal. The protagonist, Ahmad ibn Fadlan, really was an ambassador to the Bulgars, and he did encounter people he called Rus, who really were Vikings. Everything after that Crighton made up with the understanding that everybody would be able to tell it was made-up (he even cites the Necronomicon in his bibliography). Incidentally, I've read a translation of Ibn al Fadlan's detailed description of the boat burial of a chieftain, and it is much like Crighton's fictionalized version (ritual sex with, and murder of, a slave girl). Maybe Eaters of the Dead isn't the greatest novel ever, but give Crighton his due credit. No one has the right to complain of historical inaccuracy in a novel that cheekily depicts Grendel from Beowulf as a remnant race of mother goddess-worshipping Neanderthals. Obviously, historical accuracy isn't intended.
Speaking of historical accuracy, I wasn't talking about historical accuracy when I suggested the high school student is better than a Viking. What I said about the Viking was, There aren't any Vikings around today to identify with such a character, by which I meant, There are, however, geeky fanboy high school students. This is an escapist fantasy for young men who wish they could get sucked into a Kung Fu film and romance a woman who looks like Yifei Liu. The movie was not created for "Western beefcakes."
My original assessment of the novel stands. I have zero tolerance for hacking "Beowulf"; it's the hackery I object to as literary hubris, not the historical inaccuracies. And there's no need to draw on an account of an Eastern Viking ship burial for sordid details when what's described in "Beowulf" and we actually know from Sutton Hoo is quite interesting enough. We may have to agree to differ on this point.
I hope Sara's going to see this film--I'm not sure when I'm going to see it, but I'm not sure the idea of its appeal being escapist fantasy for non-beefcake males explains its appeal to, um, women. Or maybe I just have appalling taste in movies.
I LOVE martial arts movies--even though the plot usually SUCKS.. I grew up in LA on Kung Fu Theatre, and I love the action. They are escapes from the seriousness of many areas of my life. I can't wait to see this one...and I'll let you know what I think. Of course..if this ends up being a sappy romance I may end up shedding a tear or two..
As for appalling taste in movies.. I also liked the latest Beowolf (running as fast as I can to dodge the rotten tomatoes..), even though I'm not a big fan of CGI.. It was much better watching it than slogging through it in Junior Year English...
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