Well, movie portrayals of anything are generally not accurate at all.
I would say that infections from battle wounds are probably more likely, but that probably has more to do with the surface area and size of the wound and health leading up to the battle. A big scratch from a briar or a chicken might bleed a lot, but the wound will be closed fairly quickly. A big scratch from a sword is going to take a lot longer to close, and you might have been near-starving and short on sleep for weeks beforehand and have been crammed in tight conditions with 10k other guys.
That said, it's still greatly exaggerated to say a war-wound is guaranteed death. People got hurt in battle a lot and generally made it out OK. You can find lots of famous examples where even to me it's quite shocking they were able to survive at all without modern medical care. For example, not only was the hard-partying Alexander the Great wounded about a jillion times in battle, one of his last battles involved a punctured lung. It probably eventually contributed to his death sometime later, but it's surprising to me he even lasted the night!
This is tricky. With enough people, yes, a number will survive battle wounds. Most people died, though.
Consider, 50 to 70 million deaths in WW2. And that isn't looking at more genocidal like methods earlier humanity almost certainly used. Numbers would be lower, but percentage higher.
Yes, we are resilient, but that has limits. And is mostly overcome by having more kids.
I would say that infections from battle wounds are probably more likely, but that probably has more to do with the surface area and size of the wound and health leading up to the battle. A big scratch from a briar or a chicken might bleed a lot, but the wound will be closed fairly quickly. A big scratch from a sword is going to take a lot longer to close, and you might have been near-starving and short on sleep for weeks beforehand and have been crammed in tight conditions with 10k other guys.
That said, it's still greatly exaggerated to say a war-wound is guaranteed death. People got hurt in battle a lot and generally made it out OK. You can find lots of famous examples where even to me it's quite shocking they were able to survive at all without modern medical care. For example, not only was the hard-partying Alexander the Great wounded about a jillion times in battle, one of his last battles involved a punctured lung. It probably eventually contributed to his death sometime later, but it's surprising to me he even lasted the night!