Nochnye lastochki

Known to the Germans by the less affectionate name 'Night Witches', the all-girl wartime women's flying unit the 46th Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment had already been the subject of a feature film, 'Night Witches in the Sky' (1981), before this glamorous hybrid of soap opera and war movie.

The missions are led every week by snub-nosed Tatyana Arntgolts as Zhenya Zvonareva, and there is the usual restlessness to get stuck into the enemy and reprimands from their commanders for not always going by the rule book. Apart from Elizaveta Nilova as Galya Shevchenko we see little of the rest of the squadron, and on the rare occasions the unit suffers casualties their fate is signalled in advance in time honoured 'Star Trek' fashion by introducing new flyers to the latest sortie who don't return.

As the series progresses there is increasing competing emphasis on dashing Alexander Makeev's (Denis Nikiforov) guerillas and his burgeoning romance with Zhenya, and the action comes increasingly to take place on the ground, as when they make short work in Episode Six of Germany's answer to The Dirty Dozen disguised in Russian uniforms.

I've seen many post-Soviet series. From a technical point of view, Night Swallows was quite good: excellent cast, mostly believable characters, authentic equipment, good sound and photography, etc. But as the series went on, the plots just became more and more unbelievable. When they got to their version of "The Dirty Dozen" I had enough and stopped watching. I wish they had stuck to the basic story of the female pilots.

While not a technically great film, The Night Swallows is worth watching if you are at all interested in military aviation and female aviation history. The film gives a basic insight into a brave group of female pilots, referred to as the Night Witches by the German military, who flew outdated aircraft on night harassment missions. A little frustrating was that the entire film is be based on a relatively short period during a single winter. No matter, it remains worth watching as it appears to be the only film or series available on the Night Witches.

I didn't know much about the "Night Witches". I was just looking up WWII stuff on Amazon to watch ad saw this remembering I heard something about this topic.

The acting was good with believable performances. The storylines too didn't drag, and there were definitely red herrings in it (don't want to spoil this).

As far as the cons, I have a few but they aren't really huge cons. There are voiceovers in Russian as the Germans are speaking in German. It was a bit distracting and annoying especially since I was reading subtitles anyway. I also don't know if it was supposed to be funny, but I kept laughing every time a German would say something like "Those DA** witches!". "Get me 1 witch!", and really anything about the witches lol. Additionally some storylines were a bit difficult to follow. That may be due to things getting lost in translation. I also wish that would have given the supporting actresses more of a storyline as the focus was really just on the 2 main actresses. Lastly, the ending just ended. That may be the American in me though who likes closure. I've noticed with non American movies that they just pick a time to end it and it's not all put together nicely. I was just left with what is going to happen to so and so.

Anyway I enjoyed it and binged watched it all in 1 day!

This is a very good drama series that draws you in with action and relationship dynamics. The script does credit to the Russian production and the cast acted convincingly so that you get immersed in the goings on. I had no trouble seeing past what are, at times, rather simple graphics of the aircraft and quickly accepted that as the style of the piece, while the overall drama was really absorbing. They could easily have spent millions more without any improvement in the real quality of the thing. The drama is a condensation of many separate, real events. It feels odd to be exposed to such fine actors as Elizaveta Nilova and Tatyana Arntgolts who have no other US/European exposure. It leaves you wanting more of the stars and another series. OK, its not John Wick or Private Ryan for violence - it brings in humour and romance. It isn't going to be every war film fan's cup of tea, but if you want something cerebral, based on an incredible piece of history, this will do fine.