The 13th Warrior (DVD, 2000)

The movie moves along at a rapid pace, pits what might be considered good against evil and sets up the storyline as such. The storyline and director keep "the enemy" mysterious while helping flesh out the characters brought together to fight this mysterious force. Banderas plays a middle eastern nobleman exiled to the North where he and his assistant/translator meet a boat of Northmen aka Vikings. Eventually a task befalls the group when help is requested from a king of a Viking village in the far north, and 13 warriors are then assembled and go to the village. The enemy slaughters a household of people outside the village to show their horrible side and later attack the main vilage in earnest. Banderas' character has to earn respect from the other 12 and learn their langauge. The group takes the fight to the enemy when they discover more about the mysterious enemy and their social structure. Well worth a couple of hours viewing. I enjoy the storyline and the action, similar to the Seven Samuri or Magnificent Seven in a group being assembled to help save a village from a larger numbered deadly force.

n the year of our Lord, 922 AD, an arabian poet and nobleman, Ahmad Ibn Fadlan, offers his love to a woman whose hand is already claimed by another. As suspicions are raised, the woman's outraged and vindictive husbond - a man of substantial power in Baghdad - arranges for the Kalif to exile the nobleman under the poor guise of an ambassadorship to the North. Ahmad Ibn Fadlan has no choise but to accept, and so he finds himself onto the barren steppes of the Ukraine, acompanying a camel carravan and joined in his travels by Melchisidek, an old friend of his father's.

Under attack by the Tartars - a band of nomadic thieves and killers - the carravan happens upon a river encampment of Norsemen, and at the mere sight of the Viking warriors the Tartars end their pursuit and retreat, leaving Ahmad Ibn Fadlan and the rest of the caravan to hesitantly seek refuge with the imfamous people from the North.

The next day a messenger arrives, telling the Vikings of a great evil that has gripped their kingdom - an evil whose name shall remain unspoken. The new chieftain, Buliwyf, summons the Oracle, and in reading the bones she calls for thirteen warriors.

But... The thriteenth warrior can not be a Northman. Thus, Ahmad Ibn Fadlan ends up the chosen one, and reluctantly he sets out along with the twelve other men to aid King Hrothgar in defending the tattered remains of his kingdom from the Wendol - The Eaters of the Dead.

Antonio Banderas is awesome in this movie. He is an Arab who is force into an Ambassador's position because of a woman loving him who is promised to a man of some important standing. He goes by ship to the land of the North Men who are having to defend their land from an ancient evil. They soon find out what they thought were magical, evil creatures were just men. Once they realized that, they were able to fight these strange men and bring peace back to the land.

Antonio Banderas is the 13th Warrior. A Muslim who fights with the Vikings, against the Bear Clan. A fighting group that attacks villages, and eats their dead. A Muslim Swordsman, a fighter who sees the ferocity of the battle up close and engages an enemy who frightens him. And when attacked, he kills a bear warrior, to find it is just a man. When he discovers it is just a man, then his personal integrity against this enemy changes. He learns something new about his allies, soon to be his friends. And that makes all the difference in the world. Great fighting sequences, great acting by Antonio Banderas, and the swordsmanship used in this film, is outstanding.
If you are a warrior, who likes to see sword fighting, and needs some help in your quest...this is the movie for you.

I rarely watch movies more than once unless they really intrigue me. This movie, though, violent in some parts (lopping of heads, etc.,) really grabbed me. The movie is an adaptation of Michael Crichton's 1976 novel Eater's of the Dead. The novel was based on a historical character, Ibn Fadlan, a Muslim courtier to a powerful ruler of the day. In the novel, Ibn is assigned to send a message to a merchant, is willing seduced by the merchant's wife. The merchant suggests that Ibn be sent as ambassador to the North Country, in other words, exiled.
This educated and urbane middle eastern man travels to the hard North and becomes involved with a Viking camp and their battle with the brutal demons plaguing their people.
This is one exciting film.