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This is one film that has stayed with me forever. As a teenager, I took something organic I shouldn't have, and I sat transfixed to this grotesque parade of characters.

It was like my first listening to the Wall under similar conditions, as profound, if different.

This was in 1984 pre phones. Give or take a year, the only other entertainment being a snake in a fishtank that was fed wild frogs, a cat, and a dog. The movie was packed into the rear end of a BBC2 schedule. We sat bemused, bewildered as the hideous people shapes, scenery and make up fed our minds to a degree which beggared belief to the point, where we just sat in silence higher than the sun, and watched the story unfold.

The movie nurtured in me a sense of travel, it seemed more epic than say the middle episode of Lord of the Rings. The debauchery the descent into the rescue from dark forces, the dark nature of night riders across the moors, and the only normal thing in it all seemed to be Joseph, whom I felt was a representation of myself, it seemed to be reading my life bac to me, a Jacobs ladder of possibilities with only a mundane outcome whatever direction it pulled me into. Acting sublime, performances solid. I watched it many years later and found the emotions flooding back, grim drab England lit up gaudy.

So many Russian movies about the war seem to be constrained by the same lack of deep and meaningful plot and also suffer the same predictable dialogues and storyline, which is a shame given the efforts of the writing of Tolstoy and Sozenhitsyn, Sholokhov, who would have cringed at this Hollywood style effort.

It starts well, promisingly. I felt the need to know much more about the people in the opening scenes, but it wasn't to be.

All this movie needed was a Russian Chuck Norris, thankfully there wasn't one, but maybe it was chiefly an action movie, with few character depths. . The battle scenes are very good, there are some remarkable scenes and the acting is genuine, the direction of the sceneries is remarkable.

Cliche after cliche although to be fair although there are some funny lines.

Having said, it's worth watching, from a historical viewpoint, and for the stunningly shot beauty of inland Russia The movie is now on YouTube which seems it's rightful place and will no doubt be watched by the less demanding movie watcher.