Psst - This section will contain some inside trivia about the film.
Quotes - Good one liners from the movie.
Oops - Goofs From the movie.
Director – Ridley Scott
Screenplay – William Monahan
Towards the end of the 12th century, Europe was mostly a poverty stricken continent. People were migrating by numbers towards Jerusalem or what was then called The Holy Land. It was written in the gospels that anyone who goes to the holy land will be free of all their sins, get a new life and also attend salvation. The biggest issue was that Jerusalem and The entire Israel was a holy land, not only for the Christians, but also for the Jews and the Muslims. The battle for the holy land is a 2000 year old battle which has still not got any solution. Balian, the blacksmith(Orlando Bloom) is suffering from major depression after his wife(Nathalie Cox) commits suicide when her child is born dead. At the coax of Godfrey(Liam Nesson) who mentions that Balian is his illegitimate son, Balian goes to Jerusalem for a better life and peace. What he sees is totally different. The Muslims, headed by Saladin (Ghassan Massoud) are at logger heads with the Christians headed by Reynald(Brendan Glesson). Both are fighting for the Holy Land. Hard Hitting film, although not as half as good as The director’s earlier project Black Hawk Down, this movie still raises the question which has been a major part of world history, who actually owns the Holy Land? Good actibg by everyone. Superb cinematography by John Mathieson and most importantly, hard hitting film making by Ridley Scott. Worth a watch atleast once for those who love war movies.
Psst –
1) The Holy Land is important to Jews as their religion was founded here. Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem and did most of his preaching in Jerusalem and he died and resurrected here as well. It is important to the Muslims as it is from the Temple Mount that the founder of Islam, Prophet Mohammed, had ascended to heaven.
2) Crusades were fought for over 200 years.
3) Israel was a Jewish Kingdom till atleast 500 years after Christ had died. After that it was under the rule of the Romans and then the Arabs. It was a Christian kingdom only for a brief period in time. During and after the Crusades for nearly 14 centuries it was a primarily an Islamic state till the British Occupied it till 14th May 1948 after which it has been a Jewish state. Only the part of Palestine has been occupied by Muslims. Christians form only a little more then 2% of the entire population.
4) During 1948, The entire region of Kutch was considered to resettle Jews who had been homeless after the world war. This was primarily because The Jews had arrived in India during 950 BC in King Solomon’s merchant ships and had found India to be very tolerant.
5) Movie was released worldwide on 6 May 1948 to coincide with the 4th anniversary of the historic visit to the Omayyad mosque in 2001. This was the first time in history that a Pontiff had entered a mosque. It also nearly coincides with the 60th anniversary of the End of 2nd World War and the 57th Anniversary of The formation of the New Republic of Israel.
6) Hanz Zimmer, Ridley Scott’s favourite composer, was replaced by Harry Williams at the last moment. There were additional compositions by Rival Jerry Goldsmith as well. A few weeks later Zimmer had replaced Williams for the compostion of Madagascar.
7) Orlando Bloom gained 10 Kgs in weight and also suffered lot of hand injuries during the course of shooting.
Quotes –
1) “A new world. A better world than has ever been seen. There you are not what you are born but what you have it in yourself to be. A kingdom of conscious, peace instead of war, love instead of hate. That is what lies at the end of Crusade.”
2) “Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Safeguard the helpless, even if it leads to your death; that is your oath. Rise a knight.”
3) “We fight, not for the walls or the temples. We fight for the people.”
4) “They can not be buried till the judgment day. If we do not burn the bodies now, people will start dying in 3 days due to disease.”
Oops
1) The movie is set in 1184 while in reality, King Baldwin – VI of Israel(Played by Edward Norton in the movie) died in 1183.
PS – I would like to thank IMDB.com, CNN.com, sreezone.com andGeocities.com for providing most of the trivia and quotes for the movie.