User reviews

I don't understand all the hate in here. Sure, the plot isn't the best, and some things (mix of American and British accents, obvious plastic surgery on one female character's face) feel a bit out of place, but you got lots of good action, good costumes (one guy said the costumes are bad, I don't know what he's on about), good landscape shots, and the Mongols have fitting Asian actors (the Khan is played by a Mongolian actor, I didn't check what country the others are from), and actually spea Mongolian, which is a huge authenticity plus. Speaking of which, I noticed a few people in here complaining about no subtitles for the Mongolian parts. I don't know which version they watched, the one I watched had subtitles for every single bit of Mongolian dialogue, of which there is actually quite a bit btw, so I can't imagine watching it without subs. Overall, I think this movie was decent. If I have one other minor complaint, it's that it would be nice if a bit more people survived, but oh well.

Of course the plot was a bit stereotypic and definitely predictable. But if you like medieval kind of movies without expecting that everything is perfectly historically, you will like it. But the blacksmith has to be the strongest man that ever lived ;-)

In the 13th century, common folks escape the bloodshed from the Mongol invasion in Kyiv for the safety of the Carpathian Mountains. Maksim (Alex MacNicoll) saves Myroslava (Poppy Drayton) and she convinces her powerful father Tuhar Vovk (Tommy Flanagan) to attend a celebration in Maksim's settlement led by Maksim's father Zakhar Berkut (Robert Patrick). Tuhar looks down upon and distrusts these mountain folk. After an attack, Maksim and his brother rescue many prisoners and in the process, kill the son of Mongol general Burunda Khan. The Khan intends on revenge.

This is an Ukrainian sword and sandal historical drama. MacNicoll has the looks but he does need a bit more charisma to lead. Drayton does have both. It is odd that the story and production is Ukrainian but most of the actors are English westerners. It is what it is. It's a fine B-movie. It's too long at just over two hours. There are sections in the second half which drags. This can't be the highest Khan. Also the action is a little over the top. I do like some of it and that's enough to keep my attention. It's barely passable.

¨The Rising Hawk: Battle for the Carpathians¨ is based on facts , as the Mongol Empire had grown to the largest the world had ever known. Its armies now laid siege to much of Eastern Europe . A small village fights for freedom in the frontier landscape of the Carpathian Mountains. During the 13th century, Zakhar Berkut (Robert Patrick) and his wife Rada (Alison Doody) lead a group of high-landers in Carpathian Mountains. Unfortunately, their tranquil existence is soon threatened by Burunda Khan, a powerful Mongol general who leads his massive armies west in search of new lands to conquer. Forced to protect their village, Zakhar and Rada send their sons, Ivan (Rocky Myers) and Maksim (Alex MacNicholl) , to ask for help from Tugar Volk (Tommy Flanagan) , a wealthy boyar who has recently arrived from King. After his strong-willed daughter Myroslava (Poppy Drayton) and Maksim survive a dangerous encounter together, Tugar Volk pledges to defend the villagers against the Mongols. Family, Freedom, Legacy !.

Historical and epic film with big budget and hundreds of extras and others by means of computer generator . In the picture there are struggles , epic events , history and being very interesting . There's also a wonderful romance , at the beginning a mutual attraction sparks between Myroslava and Maksim, subsequently a sensitive love story emerges. Production design is breathtaking , battles competently staged , fights are incredible and impressive . Scenarios with the cliffs , mountains and flood are overwhelming and spellbound . Colorful and evocative cinematography shot on location in Zakarpattia, Kyiv, Ukraine. This Ukraine/United States was well directed by John Wynn, Akhtem Seitablaev. Rating : 6.5/10 . Worthwhile watching .

The film developed in the Carpathian mountains is based on historical events , these are the following ones : The Mongol Empire invaded and conquered Kievan Rus' in the 13th century, destroying numerous southern cities, including the largest cities, Kiev and Chernihiv , with the only major cities escaping destruction being Novgorod and Pskov, located in the north . The campaign was heralded by the Battle of the Kalka River in May 1223, which resulted in a Mongol victory over the forces of several Rus' principalities . A full-scale invasion of Rus' by Batu Khan followed, from 1237 to 1242. The invasion was ended by the Mongol succession process upon the death of Ögedei Khan. All Rus' principalities were forced to submit to Mongol rule and became vassals of the Golden Horde, some of which lasted until 1480. The invasion, facilitated by the beginning of the breakup of Kievan Rus' in the 13th century, had profound ramifications for the history of Eastern Europe, including the division of the East Slavic people into three separate nations: modern-day Russia, Ukraine and Belarus,and the rise of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. Moscow started its independence struggle from the Mongols by the 14th century, ending the so-called "Mongol yoke" in 1480, and eventually growing into the Tsardom of Russia. As it was undergoing fragmentation, Kievan Rus' faced the unexpected invasion of a foreign foe coming from the mysterious regions of the Far East. "For our sins", writes the Rus' chronicler of the time, "unknown nations arrived. No one knew their origin or whence they came, or what religion they practiced. Although this defeat left the Rus' principalities at the mercy of invaders, the Mongol or Tartar forces retreated and did not reappear for thirteen years, during which time the princes of Rus' went on quarreling and fighting as before, until they were startled by a new and much more formidable invading force. The vast Mongolian Great Khanate army of around 40,000mounted archers, commanded by Batu Khan and Subutai, crossed the Volga River and invaded Volga Bulgaria in late 1236. It took them only a month to extinguish the resistance of the Volga Bulgars, the Cumans-Kipchaks and the Alans. Immediately prior to the invasion, Friar Julian from Hungary had travelled to the eastern border of the Rus' and learned of the Mongol army, which was waiting for the onset of winter so that they could cross the frozen rivers and swamps. In his letter to the Pope's legate in Hungary, Julian described meeting Mongol messengers who had been detained by Yuri II of Vladimir-Suzdal on their way to Hungary. Yuri II gave their letter to Julian. In mid-1238, Batu Khan devastated the Crimea and pacified Mordovia. In the winter of 1239, he sacked Chernihiv and Pereiaslav. After many days of siege, the horde stormed Kiev in December 1240. Despite the resistance of Danylo of Halych, Batu Khan managed to take two of his principal cities, Halych and Volodymyr. The Mongol Tartars then resolved to "reach the ultimate sea", where they could proceed no further and invaded Hungary (under Batu Khan) and Poland Batu Khan captured Pest, and then on Christmas Day 1241, Esztergom. The former Rus' principalities became part of the Jochid appanage ruled by Batu. Batu sited a semi-nomadic capital, called Sarai or Sarai Batu , on the lower Volga. The Jochid appanage came to be known as the Golden Horde. For the next three hundred years, all of the Rus' states, including Novgorod, Smolensk, Galich and Pskov, submitted to Mongol rule. After Mongol and Turco-Mongol suzerainty was fought off, this period of rule by the Golden Horde is commonly referred to negatively by Russian historiography as the Mongol or Tatar "yoke". The Golden Horde Tartars instituted census, taxes, and tributes on the conquered lands, which were usually collected by local princes and brought to Sarai. In the 14th and 15th centuries, with the rise of the Tatar khanates, the slave raids on the Slavic population became significant, with the purpose of trading slaves with the Ottoman Empire. The raids were catastrophic for both Muscovy and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and they largely prevented the settlement of the "Wild Fields" , the steppes extending from about 100 miles south of Moscow to the Black Sea and contributed to the development of the Cossacks.

I hadn't heard about this 2019 movie titled "The Rising Hawk" from writers Rich Ronat and Yaroslav Voytseshek prior to sitting down now late in 2020 to watch it. So I wasn't sure what I should be expecting from the movie. But I have to admit that I sort of feared that the movie would be another one of those movies that have a really interesting cover/poster and the movie itself turns out to be utter rubbish.

So I am relieved to say that "The Rising Hawk" was actually an entertaining and enjoyable movie. Sure, the movie's plot and storyline was very generic and actually rather predictable. But the movie's action, costumes, props and sets more than made up for the shortcomings in terms of script and storyline.

I enjoyed the cast that were in the movie, with the only familiar faces being Tommy Flanagan and Robert Patrick for me. But I will say that all people on the cast list actually performed quite well. Andrey Isaenko, playing Petro, really had a great on-screen charisma and added something memorable to the movie with his character.

There is a good amount of action throughout the course of the movie, which definitely also helped to bring enjoyment to the movie.

My rating of "The Rising Hawk" is a six out of ten stars. While the movie was entertaining and watchable, I doubt that this is a movie that I will ever watch a second time, because the plot and storyline just didn't have enough contents to it to support more than a single veiwing.

Ugghhh dragged on and on forever with zero reward. Too long, too slow, boring story, terrible screenplay with tons of long dragged out and unnecessary scenes. And the cliches were unbearable. This felt like a 5th grade drama class production. The score was annoying, the directing - especially the fight scenes, were laughable. Medieval Times themed restaurants have more realistic fight scenes. Even the acting was atrocious - which I'm sure the directors are partly to blame for failing to direct their cast. What was Tommy Flanagan thinking getting involved with this flop? And did anyone bother checking the sound? There was an entire scene where all you hear is the horses and their breathing and the dialogue was coming from behind a hill lol. The 2+ ridiculously long runtime felt like I wasted half a day watching this. Who and why did anyone fund this mess? It's a very generous 3/10 from me.

As pointed out by others the plot and screenplay doesnt match.But still a good effort in recreating the struggles that the protagonist and his clan went through during that era of history.

This Ukrainian made movie in English has patches of spoken language pronunciation problems which is difficult to apprehend. All the invaders' language has no English subtitles which is a discouraging factor.

The story itself is entertaining and interesting, moving along at a fair pace. Once the invaders arrive, it becomes more exciting with good fighting scenes. The climax raises the overall star rating to a decent 6.

You can always tell when a project has had to use American funding. This is a prime example. It's such a shame that an amazing time period in history is dragged down and into this base low brow Hollywood format as have so many others. Every cliche'd movie moment and every stereotypical character is in there being, doing and talking cheesily. If you like shallow historical period action movies with American accents then.."fill your boots"...just not filling mine with such crud.. This would have been a 1 out of 10 but saved by some pretty good VFX.

All of the negative reviews. This was a good movie. Action, drama, romance, and a horse chase (no cars lol). It was nominated for 5 awards and won 3. The fight scenes were good, and a lot of them. This is a good weekend watch, with the popcorn and potato chips. Grab the beverage of your choice and enjoy a good flick. This is worth the watch, maybe even a couple of times. Also my 2 cents worth. The people who only watch 5 or 10 minutes of the movie should not be allowed to trash it. Nuff Said Mike Out.

Ok here we go again with the Superfluous filler to make my 600 characters. Why do some get away with a couple of lines? Okay, again, Nuff Said Mike Out.

They had a lot of good thing going,but it was ruined by horrible shaky camera work, some obvious directing problem, acting issues, at times bad fight scenes( some were good)script issues and so forth. Director and camera people should learn to use the camera for their next flick as it was one of the worst I've seen in many years. With a bit more attention to detail and a bit better cast, it would've rivaled all the Hollywood big production studios. The known actors did a good job,but the rest were less than stellar. Lot's of cliches, as another reviewer said. Questionable stunts. Some reviewers gave it a 10 seem to be "patriotic" and not truthful and the current 7.1 rating is certainly not real,but I can see it settling to 5-6 over time - to what it really deserves.

PS. the best actor in this movie was the swordsmith...

Firstly, the scenic shots are truly beautiful basing it on they aren't all CGI. It's downhill from there unfortunately.

Sorry for being harsh, but...The script is basic, mostly uneventful and rather poorly written. Accents from American to English was rather confusing!

The actors are for the part pretty average (even the well know ones that should probably know better), but this probably had more to do with the poor script and directing (possibly).

The main characters mother seems to have had one hell of a facelift with plastic surgery. Was rather off putting seeing the 13th century setting and a woman that I'm sorry to say in some scenes looked like The Joker without makeup. Why ppl continue to do this to themselves and not see how bad/unnatural it looks is beyond me. But hey, it's not my face so. Just the wrong choice for this type of movie.

In conclusion, this would best suit you if you've either A: Got nothing else to watch on a Saturday night (like me) or B: Got nothing else to watch on a Saturday night...

The poster may or may not be reminiscent of Vikings (as tv show most likely), but try not to get hung up on that. This is a decent movie with some interesting action pieces and really good stunt work. Having one of the SoA cast in this is also quite the plus - add Robert Patrick to the mix and I'd say it looks stellar.

The story may be predictable, but never gets really dull. And while certain scenes may remind you of other movies (one even felt like a scene right out of the Lion King, but with a different more action oriented fighting twist), that doesn't mean you can't have fun with what is in front of you. Pacing wise it works too, it just never got me too excited either

I was hesitant to watch this movie because of the negative ratings , but then I gave it a shot, and so I understand the disappointment . It talks about an interesting era in history that might be special to a lot of people who watched it and were disappointed as the scenery is nice, customs are really nice but the plot and conversations sound like they are in modern United States . I think it would have been much better if it was more original, maybe done in the original language with a more solid dialogue .

A movie about fighting for your home against those who want to kill you just because your not one of them.

Passives won't understand the movie.

I watched this for about 30 min and it was getting increasingly stupid until luckily when I tried to fast forward it hung up. At that time I realized, phew, I should *not* be wasting my time with such a poorly done film.

The story seems interesting and I kept wondering if it were accurate, historically, but I couldn't get past how the costumes were so poorly done, like this was incredibly low budget. I kept thinking of a 70s or 80s made for TV movie. Maybe today it would be a Hallmark film or something.

The story itself could have been interesting, the plot, but the details were so contrived, predictable, Disney-esque.

Lucky I didn't get sucked in for too long!

A positive surprise. Some very good photography. Sympathetic actors. The good against the bad. Classical story about slavery, love, valor and treachery.

During the 1200s people living in the Carpathian Mountains in what is today western Ukraine have to unite in order to withstand the invading Mongols led by Burunda Khan.

A joint American-Ukrainian production, "The Rising Hawk" (2019) is a sword & sandal flick that includes elements of "Attila" (2001), "Taras Bulba" (1962), "Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan" (2007), "Viking Destiny" (2018) and "The Lost Future" (2010). While it's better than "Taras Bulba," it's not as good as the others, although it comes close. The beginning and ending are quite good, but somewhere in the middle it loses its mojo a bit.

While this is a part-Ukrainian production and was shot in the Carpathian Mountains, the key members of the cast are either American or from the British Isles. The exceptions are a couple second tier cast members, like the actors playing Petro, Rosana and Burunda, the latter being from Mongolia. No doubt the background characters are from Ukraine & nearby regions.

Oliver Trevena stands out in the cast as the animated Bohun. Meanwhile Poppy Drayton is lovely as Myroslava. The score is exceptional.

The film runs 2 hours, 5 minutes, and was shot in Zakarpattia, Ukraine, which is in extreme western Ukraine, with studio stuff done in Kyiv.

GRADE: B.

The filming was good in the early stage, what the hell is the main task behind? Can Tuga also speak Mongolian? so funny. Is it Khan who took dozens of people to attack the small village? If Khan had such a small force, how would he rule continental Europe? Who is Brenda Khan? Boring routines waste my time. I gave the two stars recognition of the scenery.

This movie is about mongol invation on western Ukraine i 13th century. So it shows one of non-commonly represented regions. It looks pretty fresh and I think that authors have shown region fairly good. Costumes, armores and weapons are designed really well and, I believe, mostly historically accurate. I also like music in this movie. The worst problem in this movie for me is in the battle scenes. Althougt armors and weapons designed very well, this movie lacks of good horeography. Every fight consist of many short shot and therefore looks too jerky. Most of cast are looks decent except Alyson Doody whos appearence absolytely does not fit a movie about medieval. Overall, despite some cons, I like this movie. Defenetly worth watching.

Ignore the 1 star reviews, this is not a bad film. It's by no means groundbreaking in its plot but it's passable and the scenes and costumes are good, and there's decent combat.