Purely Joyful Movie!

Just so...so bad

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

I had high expectations when I started watching the movie, but its background as a TV mini-series were soon painfully evident. Flat lighting, choppy editing (several scenes became confusing, as it was evident that something had been cut), and poor pyrotechnics. The battle scenes were OK, but not as spectacular as some claim. The explosions are just huge fireballs, looking like something from a poor WW2 action movie. The main male leads are rather good, but the "love at first sight" scenario is a silly cliché. Izabella Scorupco is pleasing to the eye, but not much more. The version I watched (the Scandinavian DVD release) has the Polish over-dubbing of other languages than Polish. This was the first time I encountered that particular feature, and hearing a male voice with all the enthusiasm of a weather forecaster doing the dialogue of both male and female roles was a bit distracting, to say the least. The scenes with feasting were taken out of the book "How to stage period feasts Hollywood style", but at least they didn't have food fights or dogs prowling the tables. It is recommended to read up on the historical background before watching, as anyone not familiar with Eastern European 17th century history will soon find him/herself confused. All in all, it is a rather passable historical drama made for TV, but don't expect greatness.

First of all, I am not delighted with Ogniem i Mieczem. But I think, it is a decent piece of adventure movie, which by the way, can also teach a bit about Poland's and Ukraine's history. There is one great thing, that Hoffman did - he modernized original Sienkiewicz's book, which was written in 1884 in very different circumstances. At that time, Poland was not existent country for almost 100 years, and the goal of Sienkiewicz's Trilogy was to raise Polish morale. That's why the Cossacks in the book are just enemies, evil and cruel, and their cause is not just, while the Poles (and loyal Ukrainians, like Prince Jeremi Wisniowiecki) are good, less cruel, and their cruelty is justified. Hoffman made a movie for modern times instead, when Poland and Ukraine are independent neighbors and they have to cooperate and built friendship among citizens (I must add here, that last local slaughters between citizens of two nations took part during World War II). In a movie, we see also Ukrainian point of view. Of course, the movie still remains Polish-centric, but it also shows Cossacks as people, who had they cause as well - what was guaranteed by engaging the Ukrainian actor (Bohdan Stupka) as Khmelnytsky.Of the cast, Zbigniew Zamachowski as a fencing master Michal Wolodyjowski is disappointing, but I think he must have been under pressure of comparisons with highly praised Tadeusz Lomnicki, who played this character in earlier other two parts. And yes, Scorupco was a bad choice - after several days of marching through villages and bushes, she still looks like a cosmetic advertisement ("Despite all these things, my make-up still remains intact"). On the other hand, Daniel Olbrychski, playing a minor part of Tukhay-Bey, reached the mastery in my opinion.

It seems to me that all means of expression are guite justified in this movie. It forced me to read the whole source trilogy (Ogniem i mieczem, Potop, Pan Wolodyjowski) by Henryk Sienkiewicz. Characters are very humaly, realistic and true. Battles are very naturalistic.

There is a scene at the beginning of this motion picture when one of the leading characters says that he had made a vow. A vow that he would remain virgin until he cuts three heads with one move of the sword. When you hear that, you know what you can expect. Is good to see a European movie which is directed perfectly, a spectacle with many action scenes, excellent actors and three hours in it's running time, is good to. But hey, people, where is the plot, where are the characters?! Oh, gee, I knew we forgot something!So, what's wrong? First, the plot. Story of battles between Cossacs and Polish in 15th century and a love story put there in the middle. All right, we know that all sides hate their enemies, but it's nothing new. My country was in war till five years ago, I know that war is awful, but `With fire and sword' is not an anti-war movie. Oh, no, and this is its second and biggest problem. Our `heroes' are introduced at the beginning of the movie, they are all nice & courageous and they fight against Cossacs and Turkish. And what do they do? They kill everyone, they torture, they act exactly like their enemies. So why should I trust them? They don't feel even a bit of pity, a bit of remorse, they don't have a single doubt about that if they should fight and kill. They go, they fight, they kill - and there are rivers of blood running on the screen. Cossacs and Turkish are shown like beasts, most of them are gays and there is even a sort of witch-lesbian(!) Our `heroes' are perfectly straight, they have even a beautiful Izabella Scorupco on their side, and they cut heads with sadistic pleasure. And they don't consider another option. Not even for a moment.Is that the message of the movie?