paladin-70605 I am writing this in 2015 and Arrowstorm Entertainment as well as Splendid Films (Mainstay Productions for this piece) are getting a reputation for being masters of good, low-budget films. One of their first films was this piece, SAGA: Curse of the Shadow, which is a story of a rebellious bounty hunter she-elf that finds herself, unwittingly at first, within the mix of a motley crew (paladin and orc) that ends up saving the world while looking past their differences and becoming the best of friends. Yes, it is low budget so the CG, by today's standards, is sub-par. But, if watchers can get out of their visual-dependent box and take in all that matters in terms of movies, then this movie certainly stacks up to be... dare I say, "excellent"? I never thought I would like B-movies until I saw the several from Splendid films and Arrowstorm Entertainment. SAGA: Curse of the Shadow has a strong storyline, solid character development, well-done environments/scenery, REALLY good soundtrack (and they mix the music well). The music by Panu Aaltio really adds a lot to this piece. I highly recommend this film if you are out to be entertained. That is what movies really are for, aren't they?

Claudio Carvalho Somewhere in time and space, there is a battle between the evil and the good. The Prophets of The Order are trying to restore civilization while The Shadow is trying to revive the God of Death.The female elf bounty hunter Nemyt Akaia (Danielle Chuchran) fights against the criminal Fangtor Bloodmoon (Adam Abram) and kills him. However she is cursed by him with the Shadow mark on her wrist. When she goes to the nearby castle to collect her reward, she is arrested because of the mark and sentenced to death. Meanwhile the human Ambassador of Light Keltus the Wanderer (Richard McWilliams) chases the dwarf Gyarmuck (James C. Morris) to find the real intentions of the Shadow and he learns that the orcs have a powerful vessel that they will sell to the Shadow representative. Keltus heads to the castle where Nemyt is imprisoned and he finds that she has discovered where the orcs are going. He brings her with him to seek out the horde of orcs and promises that the Prophetess would help her to get rid off her mark. On the beginning of their journey they find Kullimon the Black (Paul D. Hunt) that was left behind tied up to two trees by his former horde after being betrayed by the orc Mulgrut (Kyle Paul). The unlikable trio teams up in a journey to avoid that the God of Death returns life and destroys civilization."SAGA – Curse of the Shadow" is a low-budget adventure in a magic world of elves, orcs, dragons and forces of light and shadows. The story is rushed in the beginning certainly due to the budget constraint and the screenplay is uneven. The choreography of the many fights is terrible, the repetitive music score is annoying and the acting is reasonable only. But the flick is watchable in a rainy day afternoon. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "SAGA – A Maldição das Sombras" ("SAGA – Curse of the Shadow")

gsweinhart I'll keep this short and sweet. A very nice surprise of a movie. I started watching expecting the usual B movie costumes, photography etc. but it far exceeded my expectations. Beautiful scenery,clear, lovely color and the makeup and costumes, while perhaps not quite up to "major Hollywood" production standards, were very good. The acting and dialog was also better than the usual B movie. The fight scenes, of which there are many, were very well choreographed. We've all seen fight scenes that just look SO fake that it's almost painful to watch. No so in this movie. OK, the 9 may be a bit high and based on the fact that the movie exceeded my expectations, but this movie is still worth a view. Enjoy.

dbryn I'm not one for low budget sci-fi, but Arrowstorm Entertainment is filling a Hollywood void with good ole Dungeons & Dragons fantasy and I had to see it.Truthfully, my expectations were fairly low, and the movie exceeded my expectations. I thought the cinematography, costumes, and make-up were pretty d@mn good! Not sure what the budget was, but from having seen plenty of 'behind-the-scenes' clips, stunt choreography in someone's living room... it's gotta be low. Kudos to all involved in giving this film the fantasy 'look'! The acting? Well, whatever. One shouldn't expect an Oscar winning performance from a relatively unknown low budget sci-fi/fantasy film. I think the acting exceeded the dialogue in the script. I particularly enjoyed Danielle Chuchran and her fight sequences. She's extremely graceful and deserves a lot of credit for keeping the film interesting.It is unfortunate that what I enjoyed least about the movie is the only major component to the film that is NOT dependant on budget. The script/story itself. So often when you have a producer(s) that writes his own script, no one's really in a position to give them a reality check on something that doesn't work - our heroes are attacked by one-armed dwarf dude (who was actually one of the coolest characters... who sort of didn't matter at all in the story... I guess they just really wanted a cool dwarf dude?) and our heroes say "What is that... some kind of magic?", and 5 seconds later "Quick! He's reloading!". So, Kullimon is now fully aware it's a gun? What? Let me start with dialogue and subtext... there was so much 'on the nose dialogue' in this script, I'm considering comping both Mr. Faller and Mr. Griffin a class on subtext at The Writer's Store. For example... poor Nemyt has been shot multiple times, and slashed/cut-open and lies still on the ground. Kullimon cradles her and is forced to say the line... "she's dying".The character development was kind of there, although all three protagonists from the get go weren't allowing audiences to bond or feel for them. Nemyt for instance is the crude bounty hunter that likes to spit on people. Once, perhaps... but I think she did it three or four times? So why do we care that she's been cursed, other than the fact that she's cute, and the audience knows that she's supposed to be the protagonist? Moving along to the story itself... I think I was at about one hour before I thought... where the heck are they going exactly? The only thing I clued into was that Nemyt wanted rid of her curse. I know there's some evil God that's going to rise up, but there's really no sense of urgency or timing on this event. The demon God just appears as our heroes arrive out of convenience it seems. In fact, most of the plot occurred out of convenience. "Oh look, here's Kullimon tied to a pole right in front of us... we could use another hero, come with us." There were a few scenes that added nothing to the plot, and they had the worst special effects - the first big bad dude that kinda sorta looked like a minotaur? Don't know who he was, exactly, or why he was there... but that was the worst SFX in the movie, when I was pretty impressed with the other effects that were pulled off.I really wish they had worked harder on the story, or had a professional writer. IMDb indicates the movie scores a 4.7/10. For me, with a better script this movie could easily be a 6/7. Again, it's a shame the greatest weakness was NOT the budget. Having said that, I was entertained and I enjoyed the movie because I was impressed at what Arrowstorm achieved with the resources they had.