The Lion of Flanders

The story takes place in 14th-century Flanders, a region suffering under the oppressive and bloody occupation of the French King, Philip the Fair. Tensions between the arrogant French nobility and the proud Flemish guilds reach a boiling point. Following the bloody uprising known as the Bruges Matins, an armed conflict becomes inevitable.Without their imprisoned leader, Robert of Bethune—the "Lion of Flanders"—craftsmen, peasants, and local nobles unite. This leads to the legendary Battle of the Golden Spurs on July 11, 1302, near Kortrijk, where an untrained Flemish citizen army faces the elite French cavalry.

At the beginning of the fourteenth century, Flanders was a province of the French kingdom and it's subjects were well and truly subjugated by their arrogant and exploitative overlords. When the king (Peter te Nuyl) is egged on by his nasty wife (Josine van Dalsum) to send in a more brutal governor, the aged count tries to appeal but that just sees him arrested and galvanises Robrecht van Bethune (Frank Aandenboom) to assemble a peasant army to take on the king's legendary troops - equipped with their golden spurs. Against such odds, what chance have a collection of farmers armed with only courage and pitchforks? It's history, and to be honest this isn't the best production of it that you might wish for, but there is something about the more rustic nature of the production that does hit home. The put-upon population are convincingly portrayed here as are their obnoxious feudal masters and when it gets to the combat scenes, the weaponry and fight choreography work really quite effectively amidst the mud, the blood and the truly heinous weapons that mankind devised to lop off the limbs and heads of their foes. Clearly, there was a limited budget here and that does affect both the grand scale photography at times and some of the acting - especially the shockingly wooden Nuyl, but I thought van Dalsum delivered quite well as the malevolent queen and it doesn't hang about for a ninety minutes that's a bit sterile, but still quite an interesting David and Goliath style of celebration of a worm that turned.