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Post by CountVonNumenor on May 19, 2020 23:36:31 GMT
In the past few days, I've been struck by a strong interest for the Romanian War of Independence (1877-1878), and I think it's rather suited because we just celebrated Independence Day on May 9th. I think the whole experienced has also been enhanced by watching the same day on old war movie called Pentru Patrie (For the Fatherland). Made in 1977, it was the way of celebrating 100 years of independence.  Despite the cheesiness, bits of propaganda and rather poor acting from time to time, these old movies have their own charm. Even as born in the early 2000s, these are the kind of movies I grew up with. I was always excited when seeing the attacks, cheering every success and lamenting the failures, always waiting to see what will happen next. The old Romanian war movies are also one of the things that brought me towards history, and more exactly military history.  Even for all the inaccuracies and mistakes (for example in most scenes, where the Mosin Nagant is used as a replacement for the Krnka single shot rifle or the Ottoman Martini Henry), you sometimes feel like you could just forgive many of them because you had a great time watching. 
 The number of actors and extras involved, the practical effects, and just the effort of making such a movie are worth the appreciation. Too bad we are no longer making war movies in Romania... Anyway, I have prepared several clips from the movies, as they can be found without any copyright restriction on YouTube. First one will be the entire movie, followed by two selected battles, the assaults on the Grivița and Rahova redoubts performed by the Romanian army. Enjoy! As an extra, the crossing of the Danube, marking the entrance of Romania into the conflict (kind of a grand entrance, on the military Song Drum Bun, scene probably inspired by one of the paintings of Henryk Dembitzky) |
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Post by Darth Vader on May 20, 2020 1:01:53 GMT
CountVonNumenor, how was victory day? Also there is a ww1 wc2 mod where you can play as Romaina in the first Balkan war. It's a little old so it doesn't have fast turn speed.
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Post by CountVonNumenor on May 21, 2020 12:33:51 GMT
CountVonNumenor , how was victory day? Also there is a ww1 wc2 mod where you can play as Romaina in the first Balkan war. It's a little old so it doesn't have fast turn speed. We did not really celebrate (WW2) Victory Day because...you know. Even if we ended the war on the side of the Allies, we still got the treatment of a defeated country since we were part of the Axis until 1944. One May 9th/10th, we are mostly talking about the Independence War. But there are no big manifestations, without counting one or two events taking place at the History and Military museums. Plus that this year has not been a normal one, so there really was nothing. Just the yearly broadcast of Pentru Patrie as a "season movie". |
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Post by Darth Nihilus on Jun 6, 2020 19:41:12 GMT
You know, at least this movie's better than the weird "Seven Man Army" movie that Hong Kong made.
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Post by CountVonNumenor on Jun 6, 2020 21:09:27 GMT
You know, at least this movie's better than the weird "Seven Man Army" movie that Hong Kong made. Never heard of that film before. And I don't say that I hate this one - I actually like it very much. I know film critics like Nae Caranfil are absolutely trashing it (although that's what he did with most of the old Romanian movies in his movie guide book), and made me quite salty reading his review to be honest. But I still enjoy this, and probably won't change my mind too soon. |
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Post by Darth Nihilus on Jun 7, 2020 0:15:45 GMT
You know, at least this movie's better than the weird "Seven Man Army" movie that Hong Kong made. Never heard of that film before. And I don't say that I hate this one - I actually like it very much. I know film critics like Nae Caranfil are absolutely trashing it (although that's what he did with most of the old Romanian movies in his movie guide book), and made me quite salty reading his review to be honest. But I still enjoy this, and probably won't change my mind too soon. I feel like the outward quality of a film doesn't, and shouldn't affect if people like it or not. I haven't seen this movie, and at first glance it looks kind of terrible, but I respect your opinion, and if I happen to ever watch this movie someday, I'd be content with discussing my opinions on it. It's good that you don't let the "front page" as we would say, or the "expert" 's opinion influence you. People should have their own opinions. btw "Seven Man Army" is literally the worst war movie ever, in a comically bad kind of way. |
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Post by CountVonNumenor on Jun 7, 2020 8:26:29 GMT
Never heard of that film before. And I don't say that I hate this one - I actually like it very much. I know film critics like Nae Caranfil are absolutely trashing it (although that's what he did with most of the old Romanian movies in his movie guide book), and made me quite salty reading his review to be honest. But I still enjoy this, and probably won't change my mind too soon. I feel like the outward quality of a film doesn't, and shouldn't affect if people like it or not. I haven't seen this movie, and at first glance it looks kind of terrible, but I respect your opinion, and if I happen to ever watch this movie someday, I'd be content with discussing my opinions on it. It's good that you don't let the "front page" as we would say, or the "expert" 's opinion influence you. People should have their own opinions. btw "Seven Man Army" is literally the worst war movie ever, in a comically bad kind of way. Welcome to Communist era Eastern European War movies. That's how they used to be made in the smaller states of the Iron Curtain. Though if you look in the case of Russia, you get movies like Waterloo (where the whole battlefield from Belgium was remade 1:1 scale somewhere in Ukraine by an army of workers, and another army of 16k extras were used as soldiers) of War and Peace (with similar feats as Waterloo). |
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Post by Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr on Jun 7, 2020 8:51:19 GMT
well seeing from the IRL roleplays of the Napoleonic Wars / WW1 I'm not surprised about the scale haha
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Post by Darth Nihilus on Jun 7, 2020 15:22:47 GMT
I feel like the outward quality of a film doesn't, and shouldn't affect if people like it or not. I haven't seen this movie, and at first glance it looks kind of terrible, but I respect your opinion, and if I happen to ever watch this movie someday, I'd be content with discussing my opinions on it. It's good that you don't let the "front page" as we would say, or the "expert" 's opinion influence you. People should have their own opinions. btw "Seven Man Army" is literally the worst war movie ever, in a comically bad kind of way. Welcome to Communist era Eastern European War movies. That's how they used to be made in the smaller states of the Iron Curtain. Though if you look in the case of Russia, you get movies like Waterloo (where the whole battlefield from Belgium was remade 1:1 scale somewhere in Ukraine by an army of workers, and another army of 16k extras were used as soldiers) of War and Peace (with similar feats as Waterloo). And then there's China lol, which my heritage is based on. To this day, they'll still have like 5-6 Chinese dramas a year depicting the second Sino-Japanese war. Some of these are absolutely egregious, but there's a few rare gems. The accurate scaling, as you said, is the main reason why I like "Saving Private Ryan", as it was filmed in Ireland but the set was built pretty accurately. |
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Post by CountVonNumenor on Jun 7, 2020 16:22:37 GMT
Darth Nihilus, Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr, unfortunately I could not find anything about the way Pentru Patrie was produced. Romanians tend to be very secretive about their stuff such as the "behind the scenes" process of making movies compared to other countries, especially anything from before 1989. Also, it is sad there is no historical movie being made here anymore, let alone movies with grand battles. The last war movie I know is Triunghiul Morții (about WW1 and the battles in Moldavia in 1917 - movie about I even wrote a review, even if it was just for an English class) from 1999, and last battle scenes in a movie, even if it was just related to historical reenactment, were in the movie "Îmi este indiferent dacă vom intra în istorie ca barbari" from like a couple of years ago.
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Post by Darth Nihilus on Jun 7, 2020 16:24:52 GMT
CountVonNumenor, that's quite unfortunate, but I'm gonna take your word on that movie. If I ever happen to see this movie on the dark web or something I'll be sure to watch it.
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Post by CountVonNumenor on Jun 7, 2020 16:29:13 GMT
CountVonNumenor , that's quite unfortunate, but I'm gonna take your word on that movie. If I ever happen to see this movie on the dark web or something I'll be sure to watch it. You can find Pentru Patrie on YouTube as a full, 4 hours movie. Unfortunately, the video quality is quite low (360 or 480p), but it is subtitled in English. I even linked it in the beginning of this thread. On a mobile phone, the 480p resolution is not that bad (that's how I got the Screenshots from it). And if further interested, Triunghiul Morții can be found on YouTube too, along most Romanian war movies, just that I did not find a subtitled version of it. I can also leave the English review I made on it here if you are interested. |
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Post by Darth Nihilus on Jun 7, 2020 16:38:10 GMT
CountVonNumenor , that's quite unfortunate, but I'm gonna take your word on that movie. If I ever happen to see this movie on the dark web or something I'll be sure to watch it. You can find Pentru Patrie on YouTube as a full, 4 hours movie. Unfortunately, the video quality is quite low (360 or 480p), but it is subtitled in English. I even linked it in the beginning of this thread. On a mobile phone, the 480p resolution is not that bad (that's how I got the Screenshots from it). And if further interested, Triunghiul Morții can be found on YouTube too, along most Romanian war movies, just that I did not find a subtitled version of it. I can also leave the English review I made on it here if you are interested. Dang 4 hours? That's gonna take me some time to watch it lol. As for a review, I think I'll watch the movie first and then the review because I don't want spoilers I guess, but if you want you can put it on here too  |
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Post by CountVonNumenor on Jun 7, 2020 18:34:14 GMT
Darth Nihilus, the review was for the other war movie, and it is very much spoiler-free. But I will let you watch it first. Usually when aired on TV, Pentru Patrie used to be split into 2 movies.
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Post by Darth Nihilus on Jun 11, 2020 22:18:48 GMT
Darth Nihilus , the review was for the other war movie, and it is very much spoiler-free. But I will let you watch it first. Usually when aired on TV, Pentru Patrie used to be split into 2 movies. If you want, you can upload your review now. I won't be able to watch the movie right now as I still have school for about a week and a half. Sorry for the delay. |
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