With Fire & Sword

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Audience Member Great opprtunity to see XVII Poland and Ukraine. Based on book written by Nobel Prize Winer Henryk Sienkiewicz Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/31/23 Full Review Audience Member This movie was surprisingly good for something I had no expectations for. It's basically the Polish version of War and Peace with a Romance plotline about two men pursuing the hand of a princess amidst a huge war between Poland-Lithuania Commonwealth and a loose Cossack alliance rebellion. The movie is long and comes in at a whopping 3 hour running time and there are definitely parts in the middle where the movie drags. However that said there is quite a bit of comedy in the movie coming from the grouping of main characters who act as support to the lead Polish hero guy. The action sequences are quite sweeping as they got quite a few extras in period clothing and had to go at it, with sabers, pikes, and flintlocks. The winged Hussars scenes are absolutely great to watch and you can tell that a lot of money was sunk into the production value for what's kind of a B movie script. So I enjoyed myself immensely but I can see some fairly large hurdles for anyone trying to watch it. 1. Length, this movie is long and sometimes feels long. 2. Almost everyone sports the same mustache style and after a while it becomes hard to remember who is who and what's going on. Since they all start to blend with each other. 3. There's a lot of background having to do with eastern poland in 1644, with mentions of Cossacks, Tartars, and the Crimean Khanate. Luckily I had a basic understanding of what these ethnic groups were before hand so I could keep up with the larger war metaplot, but if you don't I think it would extremely difficult to follow which army is doing what. So if you're interested in a sweeping epic of what the eastern part of Europe was doing around 1644 this is great and I would recommend it. Also bonus trivia: My father pointed out that the main actress who plays the princess is the bond girl who played Natalia from 007's Golden Eye. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/15/23 Full Review Audience Member With Fire and Sword is an epic Polish film about Ukraine vs. Poland and is based off of a very famous trilogy of books written in the late 1800's. The story is based on historical accounts, and has many real life characters. Because it's Polish, and talks about a Ukranian-Polish conflict there are some critics who argue that the film shows bias against the Ukranians. These are people who don't understand the concept of how a movie works and you should probably ignore them because they might drag you down with their stupid ideas. When it was released, the film was the most expensive Poland had ever made, like a not-shitty Polish version of Avatar. It's got lots of standard epic stuff: crazy costumes, castle sieges, a dude with a giant sword who wants to cut 3 heads off with one swing, a pretty sweet bad guy, crazy moustaches, and that hot babe from Goldeneye 007 (you totally get to see her boobs). It's pretty cool because you get to see a lot of shit you never learned about if you're American, because Europe is a fag country that doesn't need to be taught in your curriculum. This movie can turn that all around, and after watching it you can impress babes at your favorite pierogi restaurant and become a worldly person. TL;DR - 7/10 It's a pretty cool movie, but you've gotta like war stuff, swords, fire and hot babes. It's subtitled too, so if you don't like to read you're better off just watching something not tied to literature, like the Harry Potter movies. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/19/23 Full Review Audience Member Sienkiewicz work is biased and more entertaining than accurate, and so was this movie. As an adaptation, it was a great success followed by an amazing soundtrack. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review Audience Member Standard epic fare: lengthy, boy-girl-boy triangle, lots of battles. The costumes are the only remarkable thing about the film. I worry that horses were mistreated in the filming as might be evident in some scenes (trip wires?), but since I have no proof, I did not let that affect my rating. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/26/23 Full Review Audience Member its like the Polish "Game of Thrones"! Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review Read all reviews

With Fire & Sword

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