Brilliant and touching

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

So, this is little known the first version of "Dersu Uzala" from 1961. Based on a true story. The famous Kurosawa's "Dersu Uzala" is a remake made 15 years later, in 1975. The first part of the movie is almost identical to later Kurosawa's remake, while the other part is very different, but equally beautiful. I watched both versions many times over the years, and I couldn't say which one I liked more. This one is much shorter, though, an hour shorter. This earlier version is more like an adventure through the wilderness. A sort of a Lewis & Clark expedition in Asia's far east. In this one, Dersu Uzala is really a main character.If you like Kurosawa's film - I recommend you to watch this one, as well, because they have a different "flavor".Dersu Uzala is a 1961 Soviet film, adapted from the books of Vladimir Arsenyev, about his travels in Russian Far East with a native trapper, Dersu Uzala.The film was produced by Mosnauchfilm, directed by Agasi Babayan with screenwriter Igor Bolgarin and featuring Adolf Shestakov and Kasym Zhakibayev.The film won the Golden Wolf at the 1961 Bucharest Film Festival.