Dark Knight (TV series)

Dark Knight or (Fantasy Quest), is a 2000 TV series, a medieval adventure, and a radical new look at the Ivanhoe legend, a Channel 5 series, an Ivanhoe for the 21st Century, battling not only tyranny and oppression but a Pandora's Box of strange, terrifying and magical creatures. An epic journey into the Dark Ages; a time of fear, magic and mystery, of action and exciting adventure where the only light in a dangerous land is the glint of fire on the sword blade of the "Chosen One" - the Dark Knight. This joint New Zealand/England production attempted to capitalize on the same sword and sorcery market successfully mined by Xena: Warrior Princess. ^[1]

Plot

In the year of 1193, Richard the "Lionheart", King of England, led the third Great Crusade to reclaim the Holy Land from the Turks. After the battle, on their return home to England, Richard and his Knights are captured by the forces of Austria's Emperor, and held prisoners of war in the castle of Austria. In the castle dungeon, the knights are being tortured to tell the Austrians the location of King Richard's treasure. But the knights reply "there is no treasure". The guards don't believe them. Then one of the English knights, Tancred, tells the head-guard that they do have one treasure that all of England will pay for - "King Richard" himself! The head-guard understands what he means - "a ransom". Tancred agrees to return to England, to collect the ransom, telling the guard that Richard's brother Prince John will pay dearly for the king's freedom. The guard orders Tancred to tell the prince to raise "100,000 gold crowns", he tells him that when the Austrians have them, King Richard and his Knights will be free and have their passage home. He gives Tancred three months, if he didn't get the ransom in time, the Austrians would start killing his fellow knights. Of course, the knight chained close to Tancred believed the part about Prince John paying for King Richard's ransom to be false. The knight's name - Ivanhoe! As the guards were releasing Tancred to return to England, and looking the other way, Ivanhoe saw a sword close to him, kicked it into the air, and grabbed it. The head-guard looked back, and rushed over to Ivanhoe, but he stabbed him, and freed himself. One of the other knights told Ivanhoe release him too. But the other knights warned Ivanhoe of the guards coming. As the two knights fought their way out, they said that Prince John will never pay Richard's ransom, and that Tancred will betray them all. Then one of the guards held a cross-bow, and shot the brave knight in the chest. He told Ivanhoe, "King Richard must be ransomed! England must be saved! Go, Ivanhoe! Go!" So, Ivanhoe killed the guard, and ran out the door. He escaped on a horse, and road off west, towards England! Ivanhoe returned home a month later, his plan was to, return to his family home to make peace with his father, raise the ransom, and restore King Richard to the throne of England.

Cast

• Ben Pullen as Ivanhoe
• Charlotte Comer as Rebecca
• Peter O'Farrell as Odo
• Jeffrey Thomas as Mordour
• Cameron Rhodes as Prince John
• Todd Rippon as Falco
• Michael Wilson as Friar Bacon
• Desmond Kelly as Fingal
• Adam Brookfield as Tancred
• Dwayne Cameron as Mordred

Released as DVD

While originally set to be released as a television series, the episodes were instead edited together and released as a 91-minute DVD in 2002, distributed by MTI Home Video and 20th century Fox... as Darkest Knight in the United Kingdom and as Fantasy Quest in the United States. AllRovi offered that series star, "humorless Ben Pullen, who looks like a young, underdeveloped Arnold Schwarzenegger, and CGI monsters that look like they were shot from a video game screen, no doubt were the potential TV series' downfall.^{[1] [2]}

References

External links

• Dark Knight at the Internet Movie Database

Movies

• Darkest Knight (2002 film)
• Darkest Knight 2 (2003 film)
• Darkest Knight 3: The Ultimate Sword (2003 film)