Furious

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 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..

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!).

I would love to watch a great film based in an Old East Slavic text such as The Tale of the Destruction of Riazan, about the legend of bogatyr Evpaty Kolovrat and the siege of the city of Ryazan, in Rus', by the Mongols in 1237. Also, I did like the costumes and the references to Slavic culture in this Russian production. Unfortunately, there are no more qualities. The film is cheesy and kitsch since the beginning, with so many bad aestetic choices: musical score, special effects, viceogame-like camera moves, 360° overstylized fight scenes with slow motion alternating with accelerating speed... There is also a strong Orientalist flavour, and it is impossible not to make a parallel with the graphic novel-based flick 300, both for the subject and for the portrayal of the huge exotic (either effeminate or wicked-eyed) expansionist enemy empire from the East.

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).