fuzzytheanimalsanchez First and foremost, this is not a film for everyone. If you've watched nothing but big budget Hollywood blockbusters, with their ADD style editing, this film will have you bored to tears.Yes the film is done with a very slow pace, but it's done very well. The (much above average) score, the gradual cinematography, and smart editing move the film at pace that fits Tykwer's creation just fine (in my humble opinion).Tykwer not only provides us with a unique and interesting script, he delivers it amazingly well. The acting is much above par as the leads (and most of the supporting cast) deliver very convincing real to life characters.The film slowly brings us through a myriad of twists. The last of which are little unconvincing, but leaves us, at the end, pleased to see how things were supposed to turn out.In summary, if you have the patience for a slow paced film, and don't mind watching a film in subtitles (or for those that are fluent in German) this is definitely a must see for any film buff.-A Fuzzy review

Charles Herold (cherold) The first three-fourths of this movie is absolutely fascinating. It moves along seamlessly, hovering somewhere between reality and dream logic. The characters are fascinating and rather tragic, although the movie doesn't allow you to connect with them particularly.And then, well, something happens. A bunch of stuff is just sort of tossed in, weird plot points that come out of nowhere and the balance between fantasy and reality shifts radically to just plain nonsensical. The ending was particularly odd and unsatisfying. The movie neither ties things up nicely nor leaves you with an interesting ambiguity, it's more like it just sort of hiccups a few times and then just trails off to nothing.Still worth watching though.

astonmartin7 Der Kreiger und Die Kaiserin is a beautiful, existential and Romantic (in the pure sense of the word) film. Judging from this film and the recent Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Tom Tykwer is becoming one of my favourite film-makers.I won't do the typical plot outline because anyone who has seen and loved this film already knows how good it is and doesn't need a summary. Franka Potente and Benno Furmann are endlessly watchable and I could watch this film if it was 8 hours long. Life goes by slowly sometimes and this film's pace is appropriate to the essence of the story. There is longing. Longing for love, understanding, purpose and forgiveness: A masterpiece.

Flagrant-Baronessa Tom Tykwer sacrificed the sure footing that Lola Rennt had granted him to make a far more ambitious and abstract film: Der Krieger und die Kaiserin. Like Lola Rennt, it heavily explores the themes of fate and romance, navigating the path that life can take depending on where you are and what you want. Now, it is said that no good film can ever be too long, but this film is very good and it is too long so scratch that saying. It is no Lola Rennt for me (I'm inexcusably partial to that film) – but it is a wonderful story and Tykwer in his element.First, it details the sedated and secluded life of young nurse Sissi (Franka Potente, who else?) in an asylum, where she is unmistakably popular with the patients but feels something is missing in her life. When one day she crosses the street, a twist of fate brings her together with equally lost Bodo – pinned underneath a truck. He saves her life but parts with her on the way to the hospital, leaving Sissi lusting and searching after her savior for weeks to come until one day she decides to seek him out, much to Bodo's dismay.Throw in a bank heist, troubled asylum patients, overlapping incidences of fate and a splash of surrealism and you have Der Krieger und die Kaiserin – one of those fairy-tales masking as a contemporary film (Big Fish, Undertow, Running Scared), and aptly so. No doubt it contains many unspeakably beautiful and touching moments that Tykwer enforces with his dutiful use of techno- and piano music, such as the first meeting between Sissi and Bodo. The result is undoubtedly less raw and kinetic than the adrenaline-pumping Lola Rennt, but rest assured that Tykwer still delivers his trademark devices: shots of people running, screaming in stop-motion and fast-motion with speeding overhead trains and a booming score.For that matter, Franka Potente is also a dutiful inclusion to any Tykwer film and as Sissi she is remarkably emotive, soft-spoken, honest and gentle but with the same no-nonsense approach to tasks as Lola: get it done. Yet it needs to be said that because Bodo has trouble reciprocating her emotional needs, her character treads a fine line between sweet idealist dreamer and creepy stalker. Both characters also look almost incongruously lost at times, but this is unmistakably what Tykwer wants to highlight: being lost in life.Der Krieger und die Kaiserin is a perfect showcase for excellent photography and indeed my visual expectations were floored by the well-handled cinematography of the film. There are sharp, colourful frames after another and picturesque settings that tip over into surrealism at times, becoming medidative, abstract and introspective. This is it starts moving too slowly and you wish some condensation would have been made. Nevertheless, this is a beautiful story and a damn well-executed film, Tykwer-style.8 out of 10