Vladimir Drakul or Deliler

Vladimir Drakul or Deliler

During the 15th century, the Turkish people managed to occupy nearly all of present day Romania, and the Wallachian region’s two princes, Vlad and Radu, are brought with the Ottoman Prince Mehmed and educated with him. However, Vlad rejects these Turks and goes back to Wallachia where he ruthlessly rules, willing to get rid off many of his own people. Eight dauntless courageous soldiers, known as the Valiants, are dispatched to seek and destroy this unholy man who is busy concocting batches of a nuclear virus weapon to facilitate his machinations for conquering the entire world.

The Romanian ruler Vlad Tepes is possibly the most recognized thanks to the inspirational character of Dracula, though himself, Bram Stoker, creating a figure of the character, which is one of the most depicted in history, has been affected significantly by a actor, named Henry Irving. Vlad has indeed appeared in several movies, however, in most of them, he is connected with the fictional Count, and there hasn’t been one film that satisfies the viewer’s expectations yet.

To start with, this Cicero Reborn is a Turkish endeavor. And speaking of defending this film, which, sadly, I am going to do often in this review, Vlad is not the main focus of attention despite its English title and even the cover artwork, which must have been thought important by the distributors for quite different than artistic reasons. It is understandable why he gets a fair share of screentime, but the Turkish title Deliler may, however, make you think the focus is on the Valiants who were elite soldiers from the Ottoman Empire.

If, however, I may say if you really know your history well, you would also know that the film is insensible when it comes to trying to accurately portray the history of the world or countries like the Ottoman Empire, and this is where the unbelievable portrayal of the Valiant as an eight-man army comes in. I am becoming less and less sympathetic to such films as epics that rewrite the history books, but I am prepared to give in some points where good entertainment is the end product. This fantasy is likely to lead me into serious trouble where I feel that may become an issue in most situations where the inability to warp the facts in all attempts at pro Turkish gnarled two hours of mostly uninteresting but blatant Turkish propaganda.

I am sure many might say that I am exaggerating and that I should be focusing on the construction, character development and the action and such like and I will certainly try to get into these things in the appropriate time. But consider this this is a film which casts the aggressors in a foreign land as the good guys and their resistors as the villains. This has a a Turkish character who calls the people of Wallachia ‘our people’. This has the Spanish embargo and empire versus Vlad the Impaler conflict started not by Vlad’s refusal to honor the tribute but his slaying of a great deal of his compatriots.

This has Vlad who is still revered as a national hero of Romania depicted as a portrait of maddening evil that even his thick headed people butcher who is cruel to his own kind and even though he got his name from actually impaling subjects of his enemies. This has been made worse by how almost all the last serves keep explaining how fantastic, and ingenious the Valiants are in scene after scene, shot after shot it is what the flack hell a ’sickening adoration’ kind of exaltation is showing that differentiates illustrating heroism from this.

I am sure having being an avid reader of Dracula all my life has been advantageous. It was easy to tell that most of the so-called renditions had been aimed at embellishing the Turks to whose that have some insight into history, that is downright ludicrous and dangerous. Or perhaps some even bother with the research process, looking at the scriptwriters Esra Vesu Ozcelik, Mustafa Burak Dogu and Ibrahim Ethem Arslan for the film. Then again, I do not believe that one needs a lot of expertise to understand, for instance, the absurdity of the Romanian Orthodox being offered a cardinalate by the Catholic pope.

Putting it all aside then, does The Hunt For Vlad The Impaler still function as a historical actioner. To put my response in a nutshell: none. There isn’t much action in the film, and this deficit is not made up for by a sufficient amount of suspense or characterization.

And it sure is off to a bad start. As we share an aerial view of a strange area map where there are minimal or no attempts to take photos of the actual lands, the narrator just doesn’t stop talking about the context and just when you think it’s over when we near the church with the dragon around the tower, he just does not stop and begins saying stuff such as ‘as for these lands where endless mercy was everlasting’, and going about ‘earth, air, water, fire’. Prior to the battle, Vlad leans into the camera and provocatively invites the Turks to send a messenger. Then he proceeds to drive a stake deep into the mouth of the unfortunate messenger and pounds it into the ground warning him to behave.

A serene garden appears on the screen followed by a fleeting interaction between the Turk Baba Sultan who governs the region, and a man dressed in a rock stitched cloak and before the startling narration starts again, it informs us that the Valiant are a glorious bunch over a shaky edited sequence of indistinct battle scenes interspersed with the Valiant members fishing and standing around on top of a large hill.

These people seem to be Muslims otherwise and Tengi or Tengrists in part. Tengi was a monotheistic faith that existed prior to Islam, so our heroes dabble a bit in shamanism and even some magicism. This is probably not accurate in the least in history, but then the depiction of what were actually the shock troops of a Muslim army is already quite different from what we know them so I suppose it does not matter all that much and indeed adds another perspective.

Vlad’s sinister plan involves manufacturing a plague out of blood, rat parts, and some mysterious powder that will make him virtually invincible. He then dispatches his henchmen across towns with lies about offering to pay the villagers loads of gold if they can find abundant rats and the limbs of the dead begin accumulating. But the children, some of whom even wonder if they are real, are told stories of the Valiant who are believed to be god like protectors, armed forces that are okay all because they come from an area occupied by the Ottoman army.

At this point, it is clear that it would simply be wise to try and find humor in the absurdity of it all because otherwise, by the time a Christian priest goes into an alliance with these Muslims [or Tengi/Muslims], it is likely that one would be throwing items at the screen. Islamic law might discourage violent revolts, but it does not make for good television. Instead, American Idol-style montages of rebellious kids singing songs about a land occupied by colonial rule appears.

However, the battles are rare and short, the last one being the worst in terms of geography and the unbearably hasty edits and shaky camera work makes everything a jumbled mess. Obviously the low budget meant that lots of extras could not be present, but it’s almost as if Kaya realized that he was faced with an almost impossible task in making convincing a conflict where just a few people are facing off against many, and all but gave up.

At least he does give us a fair amount of brutality, with arrows through heads, faces all smashed against tables and a rather unpleasant scene where Vlad’s alchemist’s victim is cut open rather more extensively than necessary for a blood sample, although the goriest details, for example a finger snipping off, show off screen. And at least the blood look like it’s practical in fact CGI doesn’t appear to be present much at all.

The Valiant is shown having some interactions with the natives. They try to befriend a woman whose entire family has been slaughtered and wishes to accompany them, pick up a child, and join a ring fight which turns out to be a very promising scene only to go to waste. But the fights do not dominate the plots too much and our wish to learn more about the relationships we have witnessed is left unfulfilled. One of the Valiants is said to have watched his sibling murdered during this conflict and flashbacks reveal that another such person lost his mother to murder, going mute for the rest of his life.

These men, however, still remain rather one dimensional characters, and the performers chosen are unable to make up for it even if they do manage somewhat ‘technically’ Hakan Yufkacigil as Karali the head is authentically charming for example. The action only really comes alive, in most part, whenever the viewer sees Vlad as he is plain awful, even to his subordinates. In fact, he appears to be someone with zero virtues.

Erkan Petekkaya’s exaggerated overacting may be excessive, but it fits perfectly in every scene and is simply hilarious to see even when one laughs at Vlad instead of being scared of him. At one point he starts to madly believe that he is God’s son.

Also, Gulsah Sahin leaves her mark as Vlad’s wife Elisabeth who is presented like her husband but after a while she vanishes. Certainly, unintentional chuckles are there for example when one of the Valiant is captured rather too easily when we are being told how great they are and of course one doesn’t know whether to laugh or to feel embarrassed of lines like, “Whenever I lose someone an Ottoman comes to my assistance.”

The English subtitles, in some cases, do not completely come out right predominantly because it seems as though they translated a Turkish film of some sort quickly. At the very least, it is usually the case that it does look good in some respect with even some of the indoor lighting which should not be more than candle light producing quite a number of pleasant and well composed images.

The original score written by Levent Gunes, Tamer Suerdem and Ilker Yurtcan is good and tries to catch the rhythm of the narration, even though the amount of crying women is too much [do you remember the days when these were the fad in the movie industry?], and sometimes it seems to be paying exaggerated tribute to its idols as if we don’t have enough such things as it is.

Hosted by Barry Norman, The Hunt For Vlad The Impaler had the potential to be quite an amusing adventure, but as things turned out, it was really bad and that overshadowed whatever attempt it made. This is just overboard and leaves a very bad taste in the mouth actually.

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