Tuntematon sotilas

I feel urged to rewiew this mini series due to the fact that an 2 hour 15 minutes version (edited from this mini series) was released in 2018 and that was just a pale version of this masterpiece. If someone have seen that movie - forget it! This is the what you should watch! Here it is no heroes, no glory. Just pure realism who mirrors the life in northern Finland and Sovjet in the 40's, shows the horrors of war, but also the friendship between the soldiers. I'm 58 and have waited all my life for a worthy filming of Väinö Linnas Tuntematon Sotilas (Unknown Soldier) from 1954. That book is said to be the second most read book after the bible. Personal I equals this series with Band Of Brothers in quality and realism.

This series is a gem, realistic, exciting, sadnes, hope - and more... Magic schenery and great actors, i hawe been few times in Finnish woods and i swear i could smell them.-thats how good the cinematiography is. And of course ; Hollywood war movies cant really get too this "realistic level" - its culture i think - i guess war isnt a sports-event, and here you cant tell what everyone is going too say ore mimic; ore not say - a finnish thing so on the spot in my opinion.

1941, the finnish army is on the offensive.

A year after fighting a legendary war against the invading russians, the finns take to the offensive as Nazi Germany and the axis powers invade USSR in the largest invasion in the history of the world.

We follow the finnish army pushing into Russia and then follow the same troops as they retreat back towards Finland three years later.

The action is very good, the character developement is very good, the acting is very good.

At times it's moving, grizzly and even slightly absurd.

This is basically Band of Brothers on the russian/finnish front.

Very good.

Watch it!

I watched the 3 hour movie version first and I didn't understand half of what was going on due to there being a TON of characters and Finnish names that I have trouble remembering.

I also didn't know much about the Fin war against Russia so did some research on it.

But, I read the novel by Vaino Linna. Helped me to understand what was going on in here. I loved the book, was a blast to read. I had to write down all the character names to remember, but it helped a lot.

This version follows the book very closely too, down to exact quotes. The book however doesn't show what each character did on leave, so this added a bit there.

I have not seen the 1955 or 1980's version of The Unknown Soldier as I have had great difficulty in finding them... but I was told they are not as faithful to the book.

Forget Hollywood war movies and series.

It doesn't get more realistic than this. Here we follow a Finnish infantry unit in the continuation war, after Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.

Finland wanted to take back the territories they lost during the winter war 1939. The first filming came in the 50s, the next in the 80s and the last film in 2017. This is a mini-series based on the latest film. If you appreciate good realistic war movies, this is one of many good, made by the Finns!