1942: La gran ofensiva

What make the difference between russians war movies and american ones is beside in russian movies plays actors like actors no thirsty for money inferior formes of life.the fact all russian war movies are inspired by real events who realy take place, not like in american movies all crapy fictions like their contribution to the defeating of Germanyin WW2.

This film covers one of the least-written-about major battles of World War 2, the Rzhev Meatgrinder, which was a series of battles fought west of Moscow 1941-1943. The Russians threw wave after wave at the Germans but, in the end, it was basically all for nothing as the German positions were much too strong. The Rzhev salient only ended when the Germans retreated in order to shorten their lines due to manpower shortages after their disastrous defeat at Stalingrad.

Here, we get a remarkably balanced portrayal of the average Russian infantryman's experience and fighting abilities during the war. Surprisingly, this film pulls no punches in depicting the bureaucratic incompetence of the Soviet Union at the time, with Generals making bad decisions and the dead weight incubus effect that ideologue political officers had on the other soldiers. Nicely we do get to experience one political officer have a change of heart from his front line experience, and lots of little bits of humanity scattered throughout.

Coming off the Fyodor Bondarchuk STALINGRAD movie a few years ago, I expected a lot of the same over-reliance on CGI and MTV style editing, but thankfully it's all kept to an absolute minimum and largely bunched up into the opening action scene. The rest of the film actually features a fairly deliberate pace and some of the best night time cinematography I have seen in years. The battle scenes mostly don't disappoint in depicting the enemy as cunning, the chances of victory low, and the stakes high. There are a few instances of people unrealistically mowing down hoards of advancing soldiers with a single machine gun but it's nothing we haven't seen before.

Try and find a subtitled version of this film if you can as the English dubbing is absolutely horrendous. None of the voices have any emotional authenticity in them at all, even during the screams of pain and excitement. This film isn't perfect, but I'd put it nearly as on-par of an Eastern Front Adventure as your average Finnish war movie from 20-30 years ago.

No pun intended, really not meant to offend anyone either. You are literally thrown into the second world war though. There is no romantic sentiment or anything close to that in here. Yes the Russians are being shown as heroes and as strong as you can imagine. That being said, try not to compare that situation with what is going on right now in Ukraine.

I may be a bit too nice describing the current situation. But that is not about that, it is about the horror of war. And what it sometimes takes to win - even if it may not always feel that way. And that even the smallest victories can have a big impact. If you are what they call a history buff, you will know what I mean - or after you watch the movie it will become apparent too. A lot of violence obviously, but that is what happens during war - this does not hold back on anything.

I think when making the war movies, especially the WWII movies, the Russian movie industries is the very best, then the South Korean. Sorry, Hollywood is even worse than the Chinese movie makers. But the Chinese movies got a propaganda problem which is seriously censored by the CCP government. The modern Russia, on the contrary, when they made movies about WWII, besides to portray how bravely the Russian soldiers and the common citizens fought against the Nazi Germany invasion, they also used the opportunity to mock the ridiculous Soviet Russia's tight control of their military forces, like the CCP now controls everything. If you watch this movie, you would find such cynical mockery to their former Soviet Communist Party's stupidity. It asked the Russian soldiers to fight for their motherland, but at the same time, punishing those who were against their cruel communist policies.

I absolutely agreed with what the sole review said about this movie, this movie indeed captured me the whole time. The battle scenes are top notched directed, acted, edited, even the music is perfectly synchronized and so relevant with the battle scenes and all the situations. This movie is indeed one of the Best 2nd World War movies. Strongly recommended.

I also would like to recommend the following classic Russian movies for you; they are all great movies, most are about WWII:

Ballad of A Soldier (1959), The Forty-first (1956), The Cranes Are Flying (1957), Battle for Sevastopol (2015), Zvezda (The Star) 2002, The Tank Battalion (1991), Andrei Rublev (1966), Battalion (2015), Blizzard of Souls (The Rifleman) 2019, Fortress of War (2010)

The rating on this one is baffling as it is clearly undeserved. This movie captures the Eastern Front very well, more so than many other Russian movies I have so far seen. If you liked 1993's Stalingrad, you will like this one.