Emperor

Symbolism of perseverance, respect, and leadership. Qualities every individual should maintain. This is an American Story! If you are an proud American add this to your collection.

I've seen my share of Civil War movies, slave-trading, indentured service movies and all of them are consistent with the same themes. African tribes that won wars against other African tribes sold them into slavery, kept the women and children, and that theme repeated. As slavery grew across Africa, 100's of years ago, it found it's way to Europe. After several decades of slavery growing in Europe it founds it's way to what would become North America, literally the last place slavery got it's foothold, and the place African Americans inaccurately place all of the blame. In fact, what would become the last place slavery had a foothold, would become the place African Americans place all the blame for centuries of wrongdoing. But, that's not the story directors seem to want to tell. Slavery was alive and well in 100's of countries many centuries before the US would ever be named or even discovered. Nobody but the US seems to be held responsible for it though, which is totally unwarranted. Convenient though considering the US is the richest nation on the planet though. Perhaps my white privilege has me not thinking clearly, but I think it's time for all communities to stand up and be proud of who they are and stop blaming current generations for what their ancestors did. If they did, this would be a much better place to live for all of us. I enjoyed the story, the acting, and the actors selected for this movie though and suggest it would be an entertaining 99 minutes of their time.

Viewers must know up front that Shields Green was an escaped slave. That is the only historically accurate fact in the first half of the movie. The first half of the movie is the writer's imagination. Please don't take it as history. Green's association with F. Douglas is true, as is his association with J. Brown and the Harper's Ferry raid. And the end of the movie doesn't accurately depict Green's final fate. It's too bad that with so much rich Black history that Hollywood chooses to make stuff up. It's a disservice to history and to a people who deserve better. Much better. This is an entertaining movie, with adequate acting albeit mediocre writing. It would have been better if the critical scenes had been shot on location. Maybe the director was looking for Harper's Ferry in Virginia. Watch it, but don't take it seriously. Shields Green deserves better.

Not even close to accurate. Horrible recreation of Harper's Ferry. And the hero rides off into the sunset with his son long after Harpers Ferry was so moving, except he was hung several days after being captured with John Brown. So...just a minor historical liberty of having him ride off into the sunset instead of being hung with John Brown. What's next, a movie where Lincoln gets a third term?