nepochatov

Manchuria, 1945.

In the Yalta Conference of 1945 Stalin promised to the Western Allies to declare war to Japan in 3 months after the end of the war in Europe.

And already in May, 1945 many echelons of Soviet experienced troops began to be transferred in secret from Eastern Europe to the Far East.

In the same time Japan was finishing its last preparations to defend Manchuria from the possible Soviet Offensive.

And right three months after the end of the war in Europe Marshal Vasilevskii's Soviet Troops Group in the Far East began the huge offensive in Manchuria.

The movie shows how the Soviet troops crushed one million men Quantung Army for a few days.

The Soviet Campaign of 1945 is unknown for the Western spectators. Look how the Soviets fought against the Japanese who fought so furiously against the Western Allied Troops in the Pacific.

Also the movie contains a lot of scenes about the Japanese preparations to the biological war against the USSR and the Western Allies.

It is a very good Soviet war movie.

Rogozhkin is famous as a comedy maker. So when I saw the movie first time I was waiting for a comedy. But it was not a comedy (it had some funny moments but their amount is not enough to let to call it a comedy) so I was disappointed. But then I thought about my impressions and I understood that the movie had a lot of charm.

During WWII the USA sent planes to the USSR. Some of the planes flew to the USSR on their own. A net of intermediate airfields was organized in undeveloped areas of the USSR from Chukotka, the territory that was closest to Alyaska, to the Urals. Some pilots used to drive the planes from their airfield to the next one, then they used to return on their airfield and were waiting for a new party of planes from the previous airfield.

The movie describes the life on one of such airfields in Chukotka. That was the first airfield of the airfield net. American pilots used to drive there 'Aircobras' from Alyaska and then Soviet pilots used to drive them to the West, to the next airfield inside of the USSR.

The Soviet pilots who operated from the airfield were young guys. In the beginning of the movie the twelve young pilots were waiting for the planes and were looking how the American pilots were landing on those planes. Suddenly it turned out that all the twelve American pilots were young pretty girls. Then those guys and girls used to meet again and again in the airfield.

But the movie is not only about those pilots. The movie is about the life on the airfield. The movie has got no main hero.

Also the image of the Americans is very good in the movie. The Soviet and Americans behaved to one another as friends. The Americans were played by American actors. And the "Aircobras" are looked real. Sometimes soft American music of the 40th plays and it attaches very good atmosphere to the movie scenes. The Russian DVD I bought has got English subtitles.

So I RECOMMEND to everyone to buy this movie. It is really good movie and it stands out against a background of the stream of the mediocre modern Russian military movies that have been produced in the last years.

It was during World War II, in the territory of Germany.

The Germans decided to test the combat abilities of a few brand new anti-tank guns against a real moving Soviet T-34 tank.

So they took some prisoners (including a Soviet POW - T-34 driver) from the nearest concentration camp, said them to sit inside of a T-34 (without ammo but with a little fuel) and to move along the road.

But the Germans didn't suppose that the prisoners didn't want to be a moving target only...

It is based on real events.

I saw it many years ago and do not remember all the details of the movie.