Nick Hamm's "William Tell" is a throwback. It's a big-budget actioner — around $45 million — based on popular folklore and filled with riveting action sequences, inspiring speeches from the front lines and a glossy mix of digital and practical effects. It opens Sept. 10 at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Set in 1307, the film tells the story of famed Swiss hero William Tell, who—in this version—reluctantly leads a revolution against the oppressive Austrian king who occupies a swath of land along the present-day border between the countries. Tell, a former crusader, would rather use his sword to till the fields than fight oppression, but is forced to resort to violence after being forced by the king’s unscrupulous men to shoot an apple from his son’s head from a seemingly impossible distance.

“I’ve always been fascinated by this story and wanted to know more about it,” Hamm says of his desire to give Tell some of the screen time normally reserved for his English contemporary Robin Hood. To learn more about the character, Hamm read Fredrick Schiller’s 1804 play about Tell, one of the few written versions of the saga in about 500 years.

"Yet the fable has been used and abused as a cultural touchstone for centuries," the director points out. "For the Swiss, he's always been a hero. The French used him as a liberation figure during the revolution. Hitler loved William Tell and incorporated some of Shiller's language into his speeches, although they burned his books towards the end of World War II. So the character and the story have always fascinated and appealed to people, even though most people didn't know much about him, other than that he shot an apple off someone's head."