O Fantasma Vermelho

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.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the Second World War became the one and only unifying idea of the modern Russian society. Virtually everyone agrees that this war was a defensive and a fair one.

The Russian government lacking in it's own unifying ideas leans heavily ( i would say somewhat too heavily) on this background and tries to unite the Russian society based on the heroic war which ended 75 years ago.

Therefore there is a multitude of new movies about the War and that period, mostly these are well funded by the state and yet they are sadly lacking in anything original.

Now, the Red Ghost (Krasnyy Prozrak) is very different. It is a relatively small in scale movie, with a very fresh perspective.

It hails an unknown soldier, who fights for his home country without any hope for recognition. Without any hope for anything really other than killing as many enemies as possible.

It is an "eastern" and in many ways it is quite similar to 'westerns": there is silent lone hero, there is a clearly defined main antagonist and there is a final stand down between the two.

Even the music, while being original is quite vividly reminiscent of Ennio Morricone's immortal melodies.

Perhaps this is not a movie, which you would would want to see repeatedly, and it is not perfectly made. Most of the characters remain just illustrations of the archetypes they symbolize, such as, for example an old village hunter, a dying ranking officer, a talkative joker of a soldier and so on. We do not really get to know any of them.

But this may not necessarily be something of a shortcome - the nature of an eastern (and western) is always like that - ultimately the fight matters more than the characters.

In certain scenes the camera work may have been better. And yet the fight scenes are filmed really well, one does feel the tension of the fight happening on the screen.

The movie certainly manages to deliver it's message and it does so elegantly. There is an uplifting feeling after watching the film.

Highly recommended.

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.

Goofy and aloof with some moments of humor, spaghetti western themed WORLD WAR 2 movie, a Fresh look with how the Nazi's and the Russian dealt with one another in war, loved the action sequences in this film, it had a go for broke attitude with the violence near the conclusion which helped this movie a lot in my opinion, the Red Ghost was a badass when he shows up, but the Russian villagers who were stuck on the farm stole the movie, yes it borrows from previous films, yes it's a little too modern with the dialog, but that not a bad thing, if you can find this film, and have free time to watch an international action film, this one is not bad.

I don't particularly like Tarantino. My husband does. It reminds you more of a spaghetti western as it goes on, as the music slightly changes to the western twang soundtrack of Clint Eastwood movies.

However.... I found some of the other criticism here unjustified. I didn't think the acting was that wooden. Nazi soldiers in rank aren't going to show much character. People freezing to death in the snow are likely to be a bit stiff-faced. The humour wasn't way out ridiculous slapstick humour (like Tarantibo's deadly Western saloon turning into a vampire den. Instead, it was little things which could actually happen. As for the translations being wrong...I speak German and didn't think they were incorrect. I thought the young soldiers forced to translate death and bodily harm threats were actually Paraphrasing intentionally to try to help and calm people. In fact, I found THEIR acting really great. With very little change in facial expression, only their eyes, they managed to convey their horror and grief at at atrocities they were required to do.

And give them credit, it looked awfully cold!

Last, there was a good twist or two in the film

I liked it. Much much better than the last couple films I've seen.