The Shamer's Daughter (2015)

Undescribable Perfection

Simply A Masterpiece

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

An odd little film, not entirely satisfying but not entirely ridiculous at the same time. By all accounts this Scandinavian fantasy film was based on a young adult novel published in Denmark, and it follows the usual template of having the younger characters battling against some evil and oppressive adults. In terms of look and appearance - this is a very visual production - this is often superior to similar American fare.The main thing that's noticeable about this film is how much of an influence GAME OF THRONES has been on it. You could be forgiven for thinking the opening scenes are set in Castle Black, the look of the costumes and sets are so similar. There aren't a great deal of special effects here but there are some well-realised dragons and the like. The pacing is fast and even if you never get fully immersed in the storyline or the characters, it keeps you watching regardless. The great actor Soren Malling (A HIJACKING) plays one of the villains.

First things first: the books are fabulous... There! This movie - not so much. From here on it is easy to fall into the ubiquitous "the-book-was-better-than-the-movie-duh" trap, because this usually falls into the apples and oranges category. This is not what was wrong here. The books are immensely detailed and thought through. Nothing happens out of the blue and for no reason. In other words: there is a stringent plot course from start to finish with very little meandering. That seems to have vanished completely in the movie. If you know the books, you know *why* things happen. Why Dina does what she does and meet who she meets - in short; we get to know her very well and, just as importantly, her family. Here she apparently out of the blue befriends a drunkard assassin, a hard boiled armourer and a powder wielding mini-merlin, all willing to die for her for no reason whatsoever. Perhaps they mixed up the synopsis and the script when filming. One thing is certain. It is going to be immensely difficult to continue the story with gigantic build-up pieces missing.As for the scenery mostly everything is spotless. Absolutely wonderful and for the most part beautifully filmed. And, by the way, the dragons are rendered verbatim out of the book as vile little buggers more closely related to primitive rats, albeit rather large, than the mercurial aerosol cans dragons are more often portrayed as.

Not having read the books, the only reason i watched this was that I seemed to recall some 5 star reviews when it came out. I Wonder compared to what !!! The 4 stars are for the settings and effects. The acting is better left unmentioned. Some of the child actors actually seems to be doing better than the adults. It's possible in all fairness that they had severe problems with taking the dialogue seriously. The lines they get seems very stiff and pathetic. The Drakan character is especially ridiculous. So OK, this is a children's movie but the Harry Potter series proved that it's possible to make a movie that can also be enjoyed by adults. Oh and those overgrown lizards passing for dragons. Lol what can I say ?

Awesome for kids - but if you are 12+ you will feel like you are reading a children's book, which isn't the case with the actual book.As a reader of the books, and so a fan of the series, I went and saw the film with high expectations, and hoping for a sense of ''breathtaking''. This was, however, unfortunately not what happened. In my opinion, the acting and setup seems like a theater from public school 5th grade. Of course it's child actors who play the more significant roles. But if you can't find children with skills, one should simply make the characters a few years older.But fortunately there are the skilled and seasoned adult actors, or are there? These tanned actors work equally as if they were extras in a school play. The animations and props were good, and it certainly does not resemble a B-movie. But I hope that a film company with a somewhat higher budget, sees the potential of the extraordinary storyline and therefore makes a re-make of it.If you have not read the books, I think that the film may be a bit confusing and seem shallow, with a bad plot.Looking forward to ''Skammertegnet'' - if this were to be produced of course.