The First King: Birth of an Empire Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.0

The First King: Birth of an Empire Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 25, 2019

Lots of heroes and/or superheroes have origin stories, of course, but how many cities do? I’m sure there are cultural anthropologists out there with laundry lists of such tales, but my hunch is for most people (and certainly for me), Rome stands out as the prime example of a city whose supposed “founding” has entered the annals of widely known myth. What’s kind of interesting about this, though, is that (if you’re like me, anyway), whatever you were taught about Romulus and Remus probably didn’t go much further than the two being suckled by a she-wolf. The First King: Birth of an Empire seeks to provide, in the inimitable words of the late Paul Harvey, “the rest of the story”, and it’s a rather interesting, often pretty primal, depiction of a “society” (if it can even be termed that) slowly climbing out of a mist filled paganism into something at least a little more recognizable as “modern”.

In at least some ways, The First King: Birth of an Empire (which was evidently initially released as Romulus & Remus: The First King, an arguably more fitting title) may remind some of two Mel Gibson historical epics, either Apocalypto or The Passion of the Christ, in that this film achieves part of its historical ambience by having an apparently authentic “proto” language spoken (or kind of growled) by the characters. There’s an underlying grittiness to a lot of this presentation which the intentional “language barrier” also helps to promote, making this a uniquely visceral viewing experience at times. Romulus (Alessio Lapice) and Remus (Alessandro Borghi) are two destitute shepherds forced into even more desperate straits by a flash flood that ends up making them (however briefly) prisoners and potential slaves.

The film follows their struggles for freedom, while also offering a rather weird romantic angle involving a female shaman of sorts. The film has some really striking cinematography from Daniele Cipri, and if the tale is arguably a bit overlong, The First King: Birth of an Empire has the benefit of offering a story that is both familiar and unknown (at least in some of its details), presented here in a really distinctive fashion.

The First King: Birth of an Empire Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The First King: Birth of an Empire is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Shot with Arri Alexas and finished at a 2K DI (according to the IMDb), this is a very distinctive, if often pretty dark and somewhat murky, looking presenation. It appears that cinematographer Daniele Cipri utilized natural lighting as much as possible, and there are some really interesting torch and/or fire lit sequences that have an almost jaundiced yellow tone. Some of this darker material has deficits in shadow detail and somewhat lackluster fine detail at times, but considering the darkness of several scenes, general detail levels are surprisingly fulsome a lot of the time. In brighter lighting, the palette looks a good deal more natural and detail levels also perk up considerably.

The First King: Birth of an Empire Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The First King: Birth of an Empire features DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 tracks in what is described as "proto-Latin" and English, the latter of which I firmly recommend just ignoring. The "native" language here is a really interesting blend of guttural sounds and what almost comes close to what we think of as "classical Latin". The sound design is quite expressive, with a glut of nicely placed ambient environmental sounds throughout the presentation. Andrea Farri's score also spreads through the surround channels nicely.

The First King: Birth of an Empire Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making Of (1080i; 35:05) is a surprisingly in depth look at the production of the film, with lots of behind the scenes footage and some above average interviews.


• International Trailer (1080p; 1:45)


• U.S. Trailer (1080p; 1:15)

As usually tends to be the case with Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, the supplements have been authored to follow one another automatically (so that clicking on the Making Of featurette is essentially like hitting a "Play All" button. After the U.S. Trailer for this film plays, the disc has been authored to move on automatically to trailers for other Well Go USA releases. Those trailers for other Well Go USA releases also play automatically at disc boot up.

The First King: Birth of an Empire Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I was kind of pleasantly surprised by what an interesting, unusual film The First King: Birth of an Empire turned out to be. This would seem to be something of an outlier in Well Go USA's typical Asian film release schedule, but for those looking for something with a historical "hook" and some rather riveting presentational aspects (in both video and audio), this might be just the ticket. Technical merits are solid, and The First King: Birht of an Empire comes Recommended.