The Kingdom - Series One (Riget)
by Lars von Trier, Morten Arnfred
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Ernst-Hugo Järegård, Ghita Nørby, Holger Juul Hansen, Kirsten Rolffes, Søren PilmarkDirector: Lars von Trier, Morten Arnfred
Brand: Koch International
Writer: Lars von Trier
Producer: Ib Tardini
Producer: Ole Reim
Producer: Peter Aalbæk Jensen
Writer: Niels Vørsel
Writer: Tómas Gislason
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Danish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0; Swedish (Original Language)
Format: Color, Content/Copy-Protected CD, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 272 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-11-08
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Koch Lorber Films
Product features:
- The doctors and patients at a Danish hospital have become victims of an eternally restless spirit occupying the building in this bizarre, satirical horror film. The terror, borne of a terrible secret from the hospital's past, will not be silenced at any cost. Lars von Trier's masterful and creepy soap opera, a major television miniseries event in his native Denmark, deftly combines horror,
Movie Reviews of The Kingdom - Series One (Riget)
Movie Review: Watch this, not the American remake
Summary: 5 Stars
After seeing "Kingdom Hospital", which I thoroughly enjoyed at the time, I decided to watch the original Danish mini-series upon which it was based, although I couldn't imagine the original being any better than the remake. Boy, was I wrong. "The Kingdom", set in a Danish hospital that is haunted by the ghost of a dead child and populated by doctors and patients who are a little unusual, to say the least, is now one of my favourite series of all time and I cringe to think that I ever thought the American version was good. Everything about the Danish version is better than the original (with the possible exception of the anteater - he was added in the American version and doesn't appear in the Danish "Kingdom". I really loved that anteater): the actors are better (especially Ernst-Hugo Jaregard as the Dane-hating, arrogant Dr. Helmer), the scripts are better written, and there are some fantastic sub-plots that were discarded when the remake was made (it is beyond me why the sub-plot about Helmer travelling to Haiti to obtain a poison that will turn his colleagues into zombies was discarded and yet snooze-worthy stories about butter-fingered baseball players and a Jesus-like social worker were added in). In addition, because of the shorter running time (a little over four hours), "The Kingdom" moves a lot faster than "Kingdom Hospital" and has a lot less unnecessary filler.
"The Kingdom" was originally intended to be the first of three mini-series, so ends with a cliff-hanger. The second mini-series was made (and is available on DVD as "The Kingdom Series 2"), but unfortunately both Ernst-Hugo Jaregard and Kirsten Rolffes (Mrs. Drusse) died prior to the making of the third series and the project was shelved indefinitely. As a result, like "Twin Peaks", a series to which this is often compared, it looks as though we will never get to find out just what happens in the end of this wonderful series.
Summary of The Kingdom - Series One (Riget)
Acclaimed director Lars von Trier (Dogville, Dancer in the Dark) delves into the world of the supernatural with the acclaimed series that inspired Stephen King?s Kingdom Hospital. At The Kingdom, Denmark?s most technologically advanced hospital, a number of strange and otherworldly events begin to occur, much to the dismay of its doctors and patients. A ghostly ambulance appears and disappears, the voice of a little girl calls to a patient in an elevator shaft and a doctor?s fetus begins growing at an alarming rate.The Kingdom defies categorization. This cult Danish miniseries plays like a nightmarish cross between Twin Peaks and Chicago Hope as directed by David Cronenberg, and even that hardly captures the giddy absurdity of Lars von Trier's soap-opera-cum-horror-tale. The setting is a modern hospital built on a medieval graveyard, but the most terrifying ghosts belong not to ancient history but rather to the hospital's own dark past. An egotistical, self-righteous visiting Swedish doctor, who abhors the Danes and screams his outrage in nightly rants from the hospital roof, presides over this ensemble of eccentrics; but he's hardly the strangest this hospital has to offer. ER has nothing on this delirious madhouse, where haunted ambulances, a Masonic cult, a devil cabal, demons, ghosts, and a most mysterious pregnancy lurk in the fringes of more earthly (though equally bizarre) melodramas. Shooting in video with a bobbing handheld camera, von Trier creates an otherworldly atmosphere with the dimly lit corridors and bland, drained color schemes, set to an eerily sparse soundtrack of echoing hospital sounds and electronic wailings. The mix of deadpan hysteria and spooky ghost story concludes with the most outrageous cliffhanger put on film (to be continued in The Kingdom II). (The home video also includes closing comments by a smiling von Trier himself, unseen in the theatrical version.) Simply put, you've never seen anything quite like this. --Sean Axmaker
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