Finally, here’s a movie that manages to upstage all the fight scenes ever shot digitally, be it like those found in the Matrix or the Lord of the Rings series. Women, metrosexuals and those who prefer knitting to rugby and boxing can have all the romantic chick flicks they want, because movies like 300 balance out the equation for us Spartans (it will be some time before it fades from public memory).
The system we currently have can ban dance bars, rave parties, drinking in public, loud noise, make out sessions in public, adult movies on TV and the like, but it takes just one movie like 300 to make you feel alive and realize that you’ve already surrendered some aspects of your freedom (which no Spartan would ever agree to) somewhere along the line.
The movie is partly based on history, legend and a graphic novel by Frank Miller. It is directed by Director Zack Snyder (“Dawn of the Dead”) and is a story of how stubborn Spartan King Leonidas vastly outnumbered manages to hold back the enemy in one of the most famous last stands of history. Persian King Xerxes lead an Army of well over 1,00,000 men to Greece and was confronted by 300 Spartans.
The battle sequences appear to be a concoction of the best fight scenes from the Gladiator, Braveheart and the Lord of the Rings. In the end though, all 300 Spartans are killed, but not before, they take as many Persians as possible with them.
Frank Miller’s novel and style did not appeal to everyone when it was published. It was deliberately crude and unpolished in some respects, the colouring often drab and dark. As with most “adult-oriented” graphic novels, 300 the novel is full of gruesome, even sadistic violence. That the movie 300 brings the novel to life is indeed an understatement.
Go, watch the movie and understand what the fight for freedom truly feels like against all odds. Go watch the movie, if for nothing else then to gain a sneek peak into the minds of freedom fighters like King Leonidas, Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru.