Tag: Based on Mythology

Who’s Bleating now? King Arthur’s Night, The Documentary in Review

John Bolton’s King Arthur’s Night blends documentary filmmaking with a filmed theatrical production, creating an unusual take on the Arthurian legend. While the hybrid approach doesn’t always work, the performances and music make it a memorable tribute.

King Arthur's Night Poster ImageScreening at the VIFF Theatre (Vancouver, BC) July 14 and 18th. Please click here to purchase tickets in advance.

Set against the backdrop of Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia, John Bolton’s King Arthur’s Night is a bold reimagining of the tale told by Thomas Malory. It offers a meta-look at the play through the lens of preproduction and filmmaking rather than focusing solely on the play itself. While that approach is not altogether bad, the presentation is misleading. When all I want is to see the two separate than apart, I can at least stay fixed to the fiction. The non-fiction can live in it own world.

Because we see bits of filming take place in-betweeen the edited cuts, I’m left begging for just the myth to be told. Perhaps that will change. Until there is an announcement that there is a story only cut, what we have is a work that feels like This Is Spinal Tap!

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A Director’s Cut of King Arthur’s Night is Headed To The VIFF This July!

John Bolton’s director’s cut of King Arthur’s Night makes its Vancouver theatrical premiere at VIFF Centre, bringing a wildly imaginative and inclusive take on Camelot to the screen.

King Arthur's Night Poster ImageJuly 10, 11, 12, 14, 18, 2026
Please check the VIFF website for advance tickets.

Who would’ve thought Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia, could become Camelot? In real life, some say Bigfoot is nearby. But for John Bolton, who made King Arthur’s Night, this alternate take on the legend is something to behold. The director’s cut will make its Vancouver theatrical premiere at VIFF Centre next month.

The original production was created by award-winning playwrights and performers Niall McNeil and Marcus Youssef, directed by James Long, with original music by Veda Hille. The teasers show the labour of love behind this fairy tale, and how everyone can dream. Marketing says this take is not the version of King Arthur folks learned about in school. Some things have changed, and as for who the Lady of the Lake is, well, you’ll have to see it to find out!

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Unleashing Colum Eastwood’s The Morrigan. Just Who Is This Phantom Queen?

A slow-burn folk horror with teeth, The Morrigan reframes the goddess as something older and sharper than pop culture’s “wicked sorceress” shortcut. Through a mother and daughter caught in a modern system built to drain women dry, the film turns possession into sovereignty, and rebellion into something sacred and brutal.

2025 The Morrigan Movie PosterCineverse
Now on VOD and Digital

The worship of the Morrígan is nearly as old as time, dating back to roughly 3000 BC. In terms of raw elemental power, she rivals a force like Gaia, the very breath and blood of the land itself. Yet, history has been unkind to her. In Irish lore, she was a terrifyingly complex sovereign; in modern literature, her role was flattened to fit the needs of the “wicked sorceress” trope. While pop culture often lazily grafts her onto Arthurian legend, those who hold The Mists of Avalon as the best may need to head back to school to “unlearn” the sanitized version of the goddess they’ve been sold.

Colum Eastwood’s expansion of his short film proves he’s done the homework. He frames the Morrígan not as a simple adversary, but as a goddess of death, regeneration, and rebirth. This is the core belief of Fiona (Saffron Burrows), a woman battling a modern world designed to “steal a lady’s thunder.” The film’s strongest thematic tissue lies in the parallel between the ancient and the modern: Fiona is reeling from a husband who has abandoned her and their daughter, Lily (Emily Flain), while being professionally bled dry by Professor Jonathan Horner (Jonathan Forbes). He is a leech who steals from his TAs while the world turns a blind eye.

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All Hail, Or Fear The Great Metal God As Chūgoku Mythology is Remade?

In Great Metal God, artist Iwakuni Kogyo delivers a rare, fully silent mecha one-shot where a colossal metal visitor descends on Tokyo like a Galactus-sized omen. Drawing on ironworking myth and Kanayago-kami, it’s a wordless apocalypse you feel in your bones.

Great Metal God CoverDigital edition: Available now
Print edition: Coming Dec 16, 2025

Artist Iwakuni Kogyo may not be the first to attempt a “silent” comic, but his approach to crafting Great Metal God is unusually quiet. There’s no dialogue, no captions, not even sound effects. The way he frames the tale centres on a mysterious, towering machine descending to Earth and—much like a Galactus-sized omen—prepares to make the world its. And unsurprisingly, it begins in modern-day Tokyo.

Although early marketing from Manga Mavericks suggested there might be explanatory text, that appears only in the introduction, solely to outline the inspiration and intention behind the work.

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When “Bonds” Are Important, We Also Need To Know Zenzo, The Creative Talent Behind This Reimagining of Monkey King

ZENZO’s debut manga Bonds offers a visually stunning and emotionally nuanced retelling of a portion of Journey to the West, focusing on the complex relationship between Sanzo and Son Goku.

Bonds Manga Cover
Available to read digitally (Kindle).

Manga Mavericks Books

ZENZO is a promising new artist whose enigmatic pen name stirs curiosity. With Bonds being his debut let’s hope he’s not a one-hit wonder. All we know about him so far is that he studied under Takafumi Adachi, the creator of Beyblade: Metal Fusion, and he won  both the Japan Representative Selection and Candidate Award in the Featured Manga category for the 2019 Goku Cup manga contest.

His debut work reimagines a small part of the Chinese version of The Odyssey, and as a standalone work, it’s a fitting reintroduction to one of China’s most revered heroes! This adaptation takes one chapter from Journey to the West and dives into examining the intricate relationship between Sanzo, a Buddhist monk, and Son Goku. The latter has not yet become The Monkey King.

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When The Demoness Declares All’s Fair in Love and Lust, Just What Can Horror Fans Expect?

The answer is lots of T&A action in an otherwise Scooby Doo style attempt to save a handful of relationships from The Demoness! Nothing will go wrong, really.

the demoness movie posterWell GO USA
Available to view Digtally/VOD

When Valentine’s Day nears, there will always be a group of filmmakers and storytellers wanting to explore the darker side of the tradition. When facing The Demoness, maybe Russian filmmaker Serik Beyseu and writers Oleg Kurochkin and Dmitriy Zhigalov have a good idea to show what it takes for any relationship to survive against evil. I think changing the film’s original title to something more generic was a bad idea.

Had this film stayed with The Succubus, everybody will understand what this movie is about. When this evil force is in charge of an island retreat, things will get bad. While couples think they’re headed there to repair their ailing relationships, there are other forces who will want to help numb it further! Here, the focus is on Stacy (Angelina Pahomova) and her boyfriend Michael (Anton Rival). Technically, the only reason she’s here is to find out what happened to her sister. When she’s doing her own Scooby-Doo style investigation, that’s when this film gets interesting.

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