Rise of the Raven

[Cholmondely Percival IV]

I've found several trailers and teasers for this feature film about Janos Hunyadi, which was apparently released last year, though I have no idea whether it has found its way beyond its region of origin. It is at least partly in German so some German members may have seen it. In any case I'd be interested in hearing responses to the trailer and ideally to the full movie if anyone has had an opportunity to see it.

[Freddy]

I've found several trailers and teasers for this feature film about Janos Hunyadi, which was apparently released last year, though I have no idea whether it has found its way beyond its region of origin. It is at least partly in German so some German members may have seen it. In any case I'd be interested in hearing responses to the trailer and ideally to the full movie if anyone has had an opportunity to see it.

It is not a movie but a Hungarian tv series of 10 episodes. It was premiered in the national television in March 2025, I liked it. As it was made in cooperation with several nations (the Serbian despot is a Serbian actor, the Ottomans characters are Turkish, etc), it will be premiered in other countries too, in the original version there are already several languages (note that basically every Balkans nation hold Hunyadi in high regard, including the Turkish themselves)

The life of the great Hunyadi was kinda rock'n roll as it is with all the action, sex and intrigue, but the series are based on the historical novel series of Bán Mór about the topic which are more or less also historically correct. The most interesting part is that there are a lots of scenes in the Ottoman court too as the Ottomans also had their own intrigues of how to manage their growing empire.

Make sure you got the 18+ version though

[Cholmondely Percival IV]

Thank you for the clarifications. With my very limited knowledge of the subject, all I could glean from the trailer was that the battle scenes looked fairly convincing, which gave me some hope that the production was a respectful treatment. From your comments it definitely seems to be comfortably superior to King and Conqueror, so at least its eventual appearance is not to be dreaded.

[Freddy]

Thank you for the clarifications. With my very limited knowledge of the subject, all I could glean from the trailer was that the battle scenes looked fairly convincing, which gave me some hope that the production was a respectful treatment. From your comments it definitely seems to be comfortably superior to King and Conqueror, so at least its eventual appearance is not to be dreaded.

The story of Hunyadi is like the story of Napoleon or Caesar: a perfect drama complete with everything you need from strong female characters (Erzsébet Szilágyi was really the lioness as depicted and Mara Brankovich really became an influential wife of Sultan Murad) to celebrity cameos (Dracula and his father wo actually really captured Hunyadi) and cool side characters (Simon Kemény, but no spoilers ) The movie makers do not have to invent the wheel, they ,,only" have to put it onto the screen: nothing is perfect ofc but in this case they did a fairly good job.

[Cholmondely Percival IV]

This is a subject I've long wanted to learn more about but I'm not aware of any books in English. I would doubt that even the novels the series is based on have been translated, though I have yet to check. It seems fair to say Hunyadi has been rather overshadowed in the English-speaking world by his better known Transylvanian contemporary, largely due to the latter's penchant for gruesome punishments and, still more, having a posthumous second career that shows no sign of slowing down.

[Freddy]

This is a subject I've long wanted to learn more about
but I'm not aware of any books in English. I would doubt that even the novels yoy he series is based on have been translated, though I have yet to check. It seems fair to say Hunyadi has been rather overshadowed in the English-speaking world by his better known Transylvanian contemporary, largely due to the latter's penchant for gruesome punishments and, still more, having a posthumous second career that shows no sign of slowing down.

Now imagine 19th century Western European history but no one is aware of Napoleon or the battle of Sedan, everybody only knows Jack the Ripper    As all of Hungarian history, there are libraries full of great historical works about this topic too  just no one speaks the language outside Hungary so they are not even used as sources in English works. This is about to change, at least for Hungarian related ww2 topics there are  already some great English language sources, I hope that the epic stories of the Hungarian-Ottoman wars will come too. (The climax of the János Hunyadi-story, the siege of Nándorfehérvár [Belgrade novadays] was actually one of my favourite bedtime stories when I was a kid [the other one was the siege of Eger in 1552])

About Dracula, yes, he was real and played an important part in history, his father captured Hunyadi when he returned from the battle of Várna. Later, the son of János Hunyadi, King Matthias of Hungary repayed the debt by incarcerating Dracula; he actually kept him as a card in the sleeve, Wallachia notorious of switching sides in wars even back then, but Dracula, with his terrible atrocities against the Ottomans, would never have been accepted as an ally by them.

More on the gothic horror side, but vampire stories have a long history in Hungary, Wallachia and on the Balkans. In 18th century Hungary there were sometimes vampire attacks and stories about infested villages in Transylvania, in these cases the authorities always sent investigation teams onto the scene who properly investigated the case. Some of their reports are still existing with some weird vampire stories, but in the end it was always about bad crops, food shortages turning villagers against each other and their allegiations and rumours simply snowballed into supernatural stories. (...or at least they closed the investigation with this conclusion  )

[Cholmondely Percival IV]

I sense a new obsession arising! I believe I have a copy of Warhammer Historical's supplement for Vlad Dracul somewhere and will read it if I can find it. I assume this is the nearest one is likely to get in English to a useful source for the period. In the meantime I could start sharpening some barbecue skewers to use as stakes...