There are some things that you might expect to like about the SciFi Channel's four-hour, two-night miniseriesDark Kingdom: The Dragon King, a retelling of the German Nibelungen myth that partly inspired Tolkien'sThe Lord of the Ringstrilogy and Wagner'sRing Cycle. The production values are exquisite, the dragon effects are pretty cool and there's an impressive ax fight on an ice floe.

All standard stuff for a project like this. But even though much ofDark Kingdomis as predictable as it is pretty, there's an unexpected and welcome emphasis on relationships, not just magic and mayhem. Arthouse film director Uli Edel (Last Exit to Brooklyn) uses the universe of the Nibelungen to give a human dimension to a world of sword 'n' sorcery, a genre where the human characters are often as wooden as one of Tolkien's giant Ent tree creatures.

A boy-prince, Siegfried (Benno ... Read Full Article