If you had to put money on who would be cast for a film about 15th-century Czech warrior hero Jan Žižka, then Ben Foster, Matthew Goode, Til Schweiger and Sir Michael of Caine would probably not be top of the list. But that is the impressive ensemble kitted out in ermines and armour by director Petr Jákl for this brutal, byzantine but strangely uninvolving historical actioner set in medieval Bohemia – apparently the most expensive Czech production ever.
Foster plays Žižka, a seasoned mercenary who with his merry band of bruisers is first seen protecting Lord Boresh (Caine) from a riverside ambush. Boresh is neckruff-deep in court intrigues that make the Tory party look like pussycats: Wenceslas IV (Karel Roden) is due in Rome to be crowned Holy Emperor, but his brother Sigismund (Goode) is eyeing up the throne. So Boresh commissions Žižka to kidnap Katherine (Sophie Lowe), the fiancee of Sigismund co-conspirator Henry Rosenberg (Schweiger), to get everyone in line; she is the niece of the king of France, the period’s European superpower.
