The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim is an adaptation of one of JRR Tolkien’s mythological history of Middle Earth. Specifically, it is an adaptation of the story of Helm Hammerhand, King of Rohan, as well as his tragic fall from grace. There’s some unfortunate issues with this, not the least being that the movie doesn’t actually follow the story of Helm Hammerhand but his daughter, Hera, who is only mentioned in the story as Helm’s daughter. I don’t mind stories inspired by their source material versus direct adaptations but the liberties taken with the story are something that will come up constantly in this review so be forewarned.
The premise of the original legend is that Helm Hammerhand is the King of Rohan but someone who is deeply prejudiced against the Dunlendings. Lord Freca is a Rohirrim lord with much Dunlending blood in his veins who also holds great wealth as well as ties across the border. Helm wished to marry his daughter to a Prince of Gondor while Lord Freca wanted to wed her to his son, Wulf. A council full of petty insults degenerated into Helm striking Freca and due to the force of his blow, killing him outright. This led to a brutal civil war (or just war since Freca employed many foreign mercenaries) and Helm’s nephew, Frealaf, ends up becoming king. No further mention is made of Helm’s daughter.
The depiction in the Appendices is not a flattering one for either side. Helm and Freca behave in a foolish self-aggrandizing manner that escalates tensions between them repeatedly. Helm treats Freca’s suit dismissively and Freca brings far more men at arms to the council (which he calls) than is appropriate. It’s a tragic accident that results in a civil war that neither side is willing to back down from and leads to thousands of pointless deaths. A tragedy like Hamlet or MacBeth with no clear good guy or bad guy. Like most national myths, the Rohan ignore just how much they’re at fault for things going south.
The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim is clearly the same story but it’s a shift in perspective and, well, the morality of the story. The Rohan are clearly the good guys here and the House of Freca are not just scummy but about as detestable as House Frey crossed with the Lannisters. While Freca is just loathesome from the beginning, Wulf goes from now being Princess Hera’s childhood friend to being a man who breaks every single rule of combat as well as parlay as exist in Middle Earth. He’s also someone who wants to marry Hera by force, which is something the original tale did not imply.
The character of Hera is fine. She’s clearly based on Eowyn, though redheaded now, and is heroic as well as kind. She’s also not interested in marriage and some viewers may take it as well as other clues that she’s a queer interpretation. Whether she is or not, she plays a far vaster role in this version of the story than in the original legend. Wulf is obsessed with marrying her, she is the only voice of sanity, and is involved with several action sequences that depend on us wanting the Rohan to triumph. Which most Tolkien fans do but that was never the point.
The animation is okay for this movie and there’s great scenes from beginning to end. It’s a distinctly Japanese take on European fantasy, though, and that might not be to the taste of every viewer. The animation is a bit choppy in places but this can be forgiven for a beautiful set of visuals. Sadly, there’s precious little in the way of monsters with only a couple of orcs to hint at the larger conflict against Sauron.
In conclusion, this is a fun movie but it’s not really an adaptation of Helm Hammerhand’s fall from grace. It’s more the story of a spunky princess who flees from an arranged marriage to an evil man and her family gets horribly hurt by them. That’s a fine story and one I’ve enjoyed many variants on. If you keep that in mind, I think you’ll enjoy this movie a lot more.
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