Die Legende von Kolovrat

Well, i'm a Russian, and i'm from Moscow, Russia. I was born in USSR, 36 years ago. If you want to watch/listen to Russian "Bylina", then it's your choice. We, the Russians, remember his (Kolovrat's) Choice, his Heroic Deed (podvig). BUT. But this movie does't have anything to do with historical events (as we do know 'em). It's some sample of "hollywood" "action", brought to the Russian reality. My post is not about his deed, his self-sacrifice, but about historical reality. He did, what he did. Many of us would do the same nowadays. We just don't stand any lies, any interference in our lives. We don't like when anyone downplays our enemies. We don't like, when anyone displays our Heroes as comics characters (some stupid idiots like spiderman, whatsoever you may think). The problem of this movie is that it has too much pathos and it's doesn't have anything with, well, "historical reality". If you want to watch some (at least) good historical movies, then watch old "I na kamnyakh rastut derevya", or "Pathfinder"(1987!!! not that recent crap!).

The recipe is familiar. the purpose is obvious. and the references to 300 Spartans are, in few points, a good detail ( except the poor Batu Khan transformed in clone of Xerxes ). the slices of video games are, maybe, useful. love, revenge, a vulnerable hero and something who only the historical Russian films give. a sort of heroism who defines more the passion than the art. the historical accuracy is not the virtue, the portrait of mongols is just a sketch with many cliches but it is a beautiful homage to a legendary hero. and that is the key. sure, not ignoring the propaganda aspect and , in my case, the profound subjectivity - Kolovratov was one of the heroes of my childhood..

The movie maybe isn't perfect in some historical facts, but still much better than this piece of s**t called Viking. It has some similarities to "300" and "The Patriot" but is still something original to watch.

The plot is fairly generic and the characters are essentially undeveloped. It's a movie where you know what to expect heading into it. My only issue was the voice overs. Half of the time a womans voice was for men, and would carry over to surrounding men in passing comments. It made much of the dialogue very confusing to track. This was on Prime, so possibly some versions are subtitled with the original audio (which would be preferable).

Bloody hell, the visuals are stunning!! This Russian action adventure drama is beautifully filmed, with incredible visuals and photography, and an awesome score to accompany it.

I enjoyed the characters and the survival element of the film. Ilya Malakov did a fantastic job as Kolovrat, a young man who believes he is 13 again every time he wakes up - due to a head injury when he was just 13. All the characters were likable, and the actors were really good. I felt their pain, agony, joy, defeat and determination. This was wonderful!