Review of The Blood of Heroes (1989) by Brendan N — 19 Jul 2010

Nearly a decent addition to the 'post-apocalyptic genre', Blood of Heroes or 'Salute of the Jugger' as it is titled in the opening credits, fails to build any kind of relationship between the viewer and the events unfolding on screen.

When creating a movie in a post-apocalyptic setting, there is an advantage that a filmmaker will have over the viewer, in the sense that the 'end of the world' is a very real possibility in the minds of many people, especially in this day and age, but unless something is done to invoke that fear, the advantage is lost.

The movie begins with the explicit explanation that nobody knows how the 'game' came to exist, and so any hope of how or why anything in the movie came to be is cast aside to instead present the 'game' itself, relying on the strength of the story to enable the viewer to care.

The game being the crux of the story is as follow: two 5-man teams play for 5 minutes, represented as 300 stones throne at a piece of metal in the movie, or until one of the teams places a dog skull, yes, a dog skull on a wooden stake. Most of the teams that play this game roam what's left of the world going from village to village to play the team in that village, however there is a 'league' of players, which is considered the 'major leagues', where the competition is great and the rewards are greater. The team that is followed throughout the movie hopes to one day join this league.

The acting is to be expected from a movie of this nature, mostly phoned in with few moments to even showcase an actor/actress's talent should any of them try. However there is a bit with Joan Chen and her fascination with 'silk' that was enjoyable.

Overall, Blood of Heroes certainly had potential, but shifting the focus from how the world came to be to a sport that is foreign to anybody watching was probably the biggest mistake made, and in the end the movie actually just turns out to be your typical underdog sports movie with an end of the world setting. Post-apocalyptic fans should be recommended, but nobody else.