It is quite rare for me to dislike a movie this much but the Age of blood did it, compelling me to write a review after years. It was so unwatchable that I considered abandoning it entirely even though i have sat through some really terrible movies. To distinguish myself from typical naysayers I shall also provide my reasoning.
Firstly, the lack of character development is quite remarkable. Throughout the movie, not even a single character learns anything. The protagonist has no sense of self preservation and there is no clarity as to what happened to him and why he is so loyal. The principal events are not explained and it is not even clear whether the protagonist is even fighting for the 'good' cause or whether anyone is good. The utter bloodshed seems completely unnecessary when most people do not seem to want to get involved. There are several ancillary characters and there was plenty of potential for stringing together a story and some emotional appeal. The asinine writing ensures that even people dying leaves no impact whatsoever as the protagonist all but ensures such consequences due to his lack of intelligence. The little girl exists for no reason whatsoever and there is also a pretty heroine introduced almost at the end but who gets to do almost nothing.
The martial arts did not impress me because the shots are not clean. The camerawork is some of the worst I have ever seen and competes only with other denizens of the netherhells who do similar shaky cam cinematography. I would advise these sufferers of Parkinson's disease to find other occupations where they could be less destructive. The wins of the protagonist are utterly unbelievable and he seems to be a Mary sue with no explanations for his prowess whatsoever. There is hardly anything clever in the fighting. It's mostly brutal slog. When he gets a baton instead of a sword for a weapon the impact on enemies is similar. They take a hit and stay down and the inferiority of the weapon is irrelevant. I am ok with one strong guy beating everyone but it ought to be done with some level of credulity but that's entirely missing here.
There is much done to make the antagonists look cool and they do. However, their motivations are unclear and while they fight well and always seem to be winning, they somehow do not manage to kill the protagonist even showing him mercy on several occasions. Our hero on the other hand has no subtlety and appears to be closest to a bloodhound in all characteristics including intelligence and communication skill.
The story did not exist. This is despite the fact that they gave themselves a clean chit to write whatever by having the king say conveniently that the incident be not recorded in history. Why then not write a coherent story? There are so many questions this movie leaves untold. Why was there a rebellion? Did the king really commit fratricide? What was the rank and training of the protagonist? Why was the uncle working in the same prison? Perhaps, the writers were given the total length of the movie screen time to write the whole story. Perhaps, the writers might fail composition class in grade 9. Perhaps, this movie is secretly a masterpiece to highlight the worst of modern movie making. Getting the best actors, best equipment, beautiful long range camera shots and yet the worst writing and martial arts cinematography. The modern movie audience is expected to have room temperature IQ and so a historical context and attractive faces are considered good enough. Anyway, I must excuse myself for some scotch now.