The Red Ghost

I was quite impressed with every aspect of this production. I seen a number of Russian films and they do seem to insist on quality work. Artistic, realistic abilities are not short here. The plot is straight forward but the directing makes it so interesting, one yearns for the next scene, trying to anticipate upcoming action. Sets are real looking because there's no stage shooting, all on location. Props are as real as you can get but I'm sure someone can find a discrepancy. Wardrobe is accurate to the time and place as far as I can tell. But isn't that what the director wants? A believable story. One that just might be true?

I thought this was pretty well produced and acted. It was a bit slow, and it did bug me a little that it was dubbed in English (even tho the dubbing was well done) and probably would have been better in Russian and German with subtitles rather than English and German. I didn't see this as a Tarantino copycat or as a "fresh take," but it's better than a lot of the recent student-level movies.

Obviously director of this movie is a very big admirer of Tarantino's late creative work.

A stand-alone, presumably low-budget movie, showing realism to some degree, courage, fear, parts of horrors of war and the dedication and bravery that simple people not-cut-out for war went through.

It is more than mild, above-average (of course), could have cut through some dramatic and melodramatic moments to focus more on the fighting parts on both sides.

Recommended as part of Russian movies collection and library.

• Screenplay/storyline/plots: 6
• Development: 7.5
• Realism: 7
• Entertainment: 7
• Acting: 7.5
• Filming/photography/cinematography: 8
• VFX: 7.5
• Music/score/sound: 7
• Depth: 6.5
• Logic: 4.5
• Flow: 6.5
• Action/history/horror: 6.5
• Ending: 5.5.

Right now Russians are not being looked upon favorably. It is more the Ukranians that most of the world sympathizes with - in this case you will be rooting for the Russians though, because this plays during the second world war. When Hitler and Nazi Germany tried to take over Russia amongst other countries.

Now this is fiction of course, but that is not a bad thing at all. It makes for good entertainment - if you don't mind the violence/gun fights that erupt. Of course it is clear who we are rooting for. I was surprised a bit that there is a lot of German talking in this, but it does make sense that Germans would talk in their native language to each other. It starts off with a bang, takes a bit of time to get going again, but when it does ... well it really does give you what you could hope for. Not a masterpiece, but a really well done movie in almost every respect (no pun intended)