Forth Eorlingas! With The Rings Of Power's return to our screens mere days away, and Andy Serkis' intriguing The Hunt For Gollum movie looming on the horizon, Middle-earth is well and truly back on the menu. But among the projects based on J. R. R. Tolkien's legendary fantasy series heading our way, perhaps most exciting — and certainly most unique — is Lord Of The Rings: War Of The Rohirrim, Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex director Kenji Kamiyama's upcoming anime movie set two centuries before Peter Jackson's iconic trilogy. Produced by Rings veteran Phillipa Boyens alongside Jackson and Fran Walsh, Kamiyama's film stars Brian Cox as Helm Hammerhand, the club-fisted King of Rohan who gave Helm's Deep its name. And if its jaw-slackening, just-dropped first trailer is anything to go by, War Of The Rohirrim will definitely live up to its name. Check it out below;
"All Middle-earth knows the tale of the War of the Ring," narrates Miranda Otto's Éowyn as we hear Brian Cox's inimitable tones call Helm Hammerhand's riders of The Mark, "but 200 years before that, there was an older tale." Cue epic cavalry charges, giant eagles, majestic mumakil elephants, a momentary glimpse of some precioussss jewellery, and the stirrings of an almighty ding-dong as the arrival of brooding Dunlending lord Wulf (Luke Pasqualino) and his rejection by Hammerhand's headstrong daughter Héra's (Gaia Wise) sets the people of Rohan and Dunland on a collision course for all-out war. Boasting a gorgeous, Castlevania and Vinland Saga evocative East-meets-West anime aesthetic and a sense of grandeur both tonally and stylistically that's fully of a piece with Jackson's Rings trilogy (original LOTR movie artists Alan Lee and Richard Taylor are back for this one), War Of The Rohirrim certainly looks the part. And the story it tells, once relegated to the appendices of Professor Tolkien's legendarium and now brought to feature-length life, is a real doozy.
Here's the official synopsis: "The Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim tells the fate of the House of Helm Hammerhand (Brian Cox), the legendary King of Rohan. A sudden attack by Wulf (Luke Pasqualino), a clever and ruthless Dunlending lord seeking vengeance for the death of his father, forces Helm and his people to make a daring last stand in the ancient stronghold of the Hornburg—a mighty fortress that will later come to be known as Helm’s Deep. Finding herself in an increasingly desperate situation, Héra (Gaia Wise), the daughter of Helm, must summon the will to lead the resistance against a deadly enemy intent on their total destruction."
Written by Jeffrey Addiss & Will Matthews and Phoebe Gittins & Arty Papageorgiou, from a story by Addiss & Matthews and Philippa Boyens, Lord Of The Rings: War Of The Rohirrim is set to charge into cinemas internationally on 11 December ahead of a US release on 13 December. Ride now! Ride now! Ride to the ticket booth!