Warriors

Thrill to lavish, all-action dramatic spectacles based on the lives of six men who left their marks on the world-from Spartacus, the gladiator who brought Rome to its knees, to the audacious military genius, Napoleon. See how Samurai general Tokugawa fought his way to become the Shogun of Japan. Follow the military maneuvering that helped Cortez conquer Montezuma. Discover the political intrigue surrounding Richard the Lionheart in the Holy Land. And marvel at the ruthless yet brilliant tactics of Attila the Hun. Absorbing drama and CGI effects reveal the motives, force of will, genius, courage and greed that drove these men to achieve what no one else had dared. An exciting and informative BBC production, as seen on PBS.

Episode 1 - Napoleon - Focusing on three critical months in 1793 when 24-year-old artillery officer Napoleon Bonaparte - displaying a dazzling combination of political cunning, personal bravery and military genius - drove the English fleet from Toulon, thus establishing his reputation and saving the Revolution.

Episode 2 -  The Shogun - Samurai general Tokugawa Ieyasu became a towering figure of Japanese history by overthrowing the governing dynasty of Japan and becoming the Shogun (the supreme military leader) of Japan. Ieyasu's rise to power climaxes in the biggest Samurai battle in history, with 160,000 soldiers fighting for the future of Japan. On the way, there is a story of love for a reckless son, a politician in drag, a night-time Ninja attack, suicide and betrayal.

Episode 3 -  Spartacus - Was Spartacus the dimple-chinned freedom fighter of Kubrick's famous movie? This programme reveals Spartacus as he really was - a brilliant leader of a guerrilla band, but a flawed and indecisive human being. Anthony Flanagan stars as the slave who took on the Roman Empire.

Episode 4 -  Cortes - In, 1519 the Spanish adventurer Hernan Cortes is supposed to have taken on the mighty Aztec empire with a handful of soldiers and 16 horses. The myth claims that the Aztec emperor, Montezuma, surrendered his empire beause he believed Cortes to be a God. But a more accurate account suggests that the Conquistadors started a civil war in Central America, uniting an army of tribesmen who hated Aztec rule. Montezuma is revealed to be a sophisticated ruler.

Episode 5 -  Richard The Lionheart - Was Richard the Lionheart a heroic warrior, noble and wise? Or was he just a greedy thug who wanted to loot the Holy Land? This film shows neither view to be true. It reveals a Richard we have never seen before - a man motivated by Christian duty, struggling with the problems of leading a fractious international coalition, fighting a Muslim opponent who cannot be beaten.

Episode 6 -  Attila The Hun - Exploring the myth of the crude Attila. Part genius, part psychopath, Attila is unlike the other Huns. A calculating, ruthless gambler, his one goal is conquest - and he's set his sights on Roman cities to test out his brilliant new siege tactics.

Napoleon

The Shogun

Spartacus

Cortes

Richard the Lionheart

Attila the Hun

Episode 1
"Not since the last episode of Hornblower can any TV drama have served up so much old-fashioned swashbuckling with such a straight face ... If the other episodes manage the same mix of intriguing historical information and exhilarating, slightly mad entertainment, we should be in for a treat." James Walton, Daily Telegraph

"...a stonking cast, great locations and a knowing script ... Tom Burke made a swarthily convincing Napoleon and his exchanges with Rob Brydon's scheming, revolutionary apparatchik Freron brought history to life in a way that was dramatic, yet smacked of the real thing. Even the odd, saucy double entendre ... added to the frisky feel of a canter through momentous events. For once, I was left wanting more." Keith Watson, London Metro

"Blockbusting historical dramas are difficult to pull off on television. Either they suffer from clunking exposition-speak to get the history across, or they are handicapped by a limited budget, so that a handful of extras in clean uniforms has to stand in for an army. Neither is the case here. With a tremendous ... choice cast of character actors, the writer and director Nick Murphy has done wonders with the resources at his disposal on location in Malta. It's the French answer to Hornblower - the difference being that this is historically accurate and far more atmospheric." David Chater, The Times

"This is a handsome docu-drama filmed in authentic locations with spectacular CGI battles..." Mike Bradley, Observer

"It's a handsome production, with plenty of action and a starry cast." Critics' Choice, Daily Mail

"...impressive..." Gerard Gilbert, Independent

"Tom Burke is an excellent Napoleon - driven almost to the point of manic, and fearless, with a crazy look in his eye, but charming too. And short, of course. But the real star of the show is Rob Brydon, who plays a slimy official called Louis-Marie Stanislas Freron. He's seedy, mean and creepy, like an icy wind that moves silently about the place, causing evil and destruction." Sam Wollaston, Guardian

"...the show's stolen by Rob Brydon, playing it straight to creepy effect as the nasty revolutionary Freron." Ceri Thomas, London Evening Standard

"...undoubtedly stylish ... Dialogue and photography both swaggered, getting across the period's rhetorical extravagance and paranoia..." Robert Hanks, Independent

"...meticulously researched but all-action drama documentaries..." Sunday Telegraph

"It's shot in authentic locations, and you can expect some impressive CGI battles." Sunday Mirror

"...above-average docudrama ... CGI and famous quotations fill the gaps between the bloody, muddy battles." Gareth McLean, Guardian

"Heroes & Villains, with its CGI battle sequences, digital cannon balls and stylised combat was nothing less than Boy's Own infotainment orgasm masquerading as historical analysis." Kevin Maher, The Times

"The trouble with historical drama-documentaries is that if the story is dramatic it rather makes one question the documentary element. Odd moments undermine an otherwise excellent evocation of the early life of Napoleon Bonaparte, such as the persistently clunky use of the word ‘screwed' when the character seems infinitely more likely to have used a pithier term ... with Tom Burke excelling as young Boney." Critics' Choice, Sunday Times

"It would be easy to mock the Heroes and Villains series for its swashbuckling, up-and-at-'em-lads approach to history, but each episode is performed with immense gusto and the programme-makers have worked hard to get the facts right." David Chater, The Times

"...a series that challenges our preconceived view of great warriors and shows that ... they usually have a surprising side." Stephen Pile, Daily Telegraph

Episode 2
"With a large cast in full samurai regalia, it offers a vivid crash course in the complexities of Japanese history, complete with tremendous battle scenes..." David Chater, The Times

"...ritualised suicides, the black-clad ninja assassins clambering over the rooftops, the noble samurai solemnly running through his sword moves in perfect silence... And by TV standards, it was all done on a pretty lavish scale..." Robert Hanks, Independent

Episode 3
"...a competent, humble attempt to re-enact the ancient, myth-based uprising, even if the point is ultimately trampled under the weight of stampeding extras in open-toed boots."
Sarah Dempster, Guardian

"With a wealth of special effects for the bloody battles and a cast of unknowns in the major roles, the drama is tightly drawn and delivers the reality of the period without any distracting big names to get in the way ... The BBC film benefits enormously from the contribution of Professor Mary Beard, professor of classics at Newnham College, Cambridge, who acted as historical consultant. Her research into the period and wide knowledge of contemporary accounts by such Roman writers as Plutarch, Appian and Florus proved invaluable in redressing the balance." Neil Norman, Daily Express

"This drama documentary belongs to the Heroes & Villains strand, and there is little doubt as to which category it places Spartacus (Anthony Flanagan) in. A slave trained as a gladiator, he shows guts and a righteous hatred of oppression in leading an escape by 70 fighters, and canny resourcefulness in humiliating a decadent Rome peopled by bloodthirsty plebs and obnoxious politicians, such as Crassus (Robert Glenister). There is more emphasis than in Stanley Kubrick's movie, though, on his deficiencies as a leader ... Narrated by an aide of the hero, like the same series's study of Attila, the film is similarly fully dramatised. The advantage of this approach is that the story flows without interruption and the battle scenes are done properly." John Dugdale, Sunday Times

"Great TV." Sun

Episode 4
"With the now-familiar format of bold dramatisations, straightforward storytelling and CGI effects, Cortes tells the astounding story of how one man with 600 soldiers conquered and destroyed an entire civilisation in eight months. Dr Caroline Dodds, lecturer in early modern history at the University of Leicester, was responsible for advising on the programme to ensure historical accuracy, and - perhaps surprisingly - Hernan Cortes (Brian McCardie, below) emerges as less of a marauding brigand than usual. He was motivated, it seems, as much by a crusading Roman Catholicism as by the lust for gold. Time and again, he repeats the phrase ‘We are Christians, not savages', but it didn't prevent the slaughter of a quarter of a million Aztecs." David Chater, The Times

"Legend has it that the 16th-century conquistador Hernan Cortes defeated the Aztecs of Latin America with a just a few soldiers. This drama-documentary begs to differ, suggesting that he relied heavily on an army of disaffected locals." Peter Chapman, Independent

Episode 5
"With the help of imaginative special effects and clever camerawork, it demonstrates clearly how Saladin's scorched-earth tactics deprived the Crusaders of supplies and sowed dissent among its leaders, while at the same time showing how King Richard earned his reputation as a mythical warrior king." David Chater, The Times

Episode 6
"Attila has battle scenes and ancient landscapes to match The Lord of the Rings or Gladiator. For the first time ever, a Hollywood-scale film has been made on a British TV budget ... Attila works as a traditional piece of storytelling and as historical re-creation, with little in it to suggest a triumph of computer manipulation." Will Hodgkinson, Guardian

"To say that this new film by garlanded visual effects designer and now director Gareth Edwards was merely spectacular would be to do it a disservice. Not only is it a masterpiece of impressively lifelike CGI work (most of it assembled in Edwards's bedroom), it's also a penetrating visual and psychological study of one of the greatest leaders and military strategists of Late Antiquity delivered in the form of an engaging drama. A treat." Mike Bradley, Observer

"...two things swiftly became apparent. One was that Attila the Hun looked very good. You want mighty hordes? There were enough here to carpet a small continent. It had also - most unusually for this sort of thing - been written with a rather light and witty touch." John Preston, Sunday Telegraph

"...a gripping piece of docudrama that achieved that most unusual combination of both informing and entertaining us viewers ... The special effects were astonishingly good and it was the kind of show that your TV was invented for." Lorraine Kelly, Sun

"The history is solidly reliable, and the epic geographical scale of the story, from the limitless steppes of Scythia ... to the high passes of the Carpathians, the mighty land walls of Constantinople to the ‘vasty fields of France', are conjured credibly enough using only bits of Bulgaria ... Rory McCann has a beefy presence in the title role..." William Napier (historian), Sunday Times

"I'm not a fan of this period of history ... None the less I found myself warming to this CGI-littered mini-epic ... I hadn't, for example, realised that after years of ransacking, Attila had actually died in the sack, on his wedding night. These days it's rare to need more information about the sex lives of historical figures, but here was a fine exception." Kathryn Flett, Observer

"...if you wanted bone-crunching violence and epic battles, then you were in clover - and plaudits to the director Gareth Edwards who created it using computer trickery, rather than thousands of extras." Tim Teeman, The Times

"...don't worry, it's not a boring history lesson. Yes, the drama does get off to a slow start, but viewers who stick through this are rewarded with some great battle scenes and an amazing performance by actor Rory McCann..." Maeve Quigley, Daily Mirror

"The big thing about Attila is the battles - rendered in Lord of the Rings-type widescreen, with the best CGI effects you have ever seen on a TV show." Caitlin Moran, The Times

"...your blocks will be busted." David Chater, The Times

After defeat at the Battle at Siler River, 6,000 of Spartacus' men were crucified on the Apian Way. Spartacus' body was never found.

Tokugawa Ieyasu founded Tokyo.

The Aztecs believed that one of their gods, Quetzalcoatl, would one day return to Earth.

Statues depicted him as white, bearded and wearing a helmet remarkable similar to the one the Spaniards wore.

Saladin chivalrously sent Richard the Lionheart two fresh horse so he could fight on during the battle at the port of Jaffa.