If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

A very interesting depiction of rural Russia, this epic film shows Russian Cossacks living in Siberia. The main theme is a beautiful and tragic love story between young Cossack Roman Ulybin (V. Solomin) and Dashutka (Golovina). Roman is asking his father Severian Ulybin (Shelokhonov) to send a Matchmaker, but a merchant's son has more money, so he takes the girl. The lavish traditional wedding with singing, dancing and drinking in the Russian style is among the best wedding scenes in Russian film. Next comes the Russian Civil War between the Reds and Whites and the movie takes us to some dramatic battles. Good director and a nice ensemble of leading Russian actors make this movie a collectors item.