Oswobozhdenije - Liberation 01

Genre:.....................WWII Drama
Language:.................Russian - No Subs
Picture:...................Colour/B&W
Runtime:..................1Hr28Mins
Size:........................1.36Gb

LIBERATION was released pretty much everywhere except North America back in the 70's as at least two separate films. It's actually not so much a film but more or less either a miniseries or five distinct films, each covering a different battle. While it WAS dubbed into English like most other Russian films, I don't think that's out on DVD or VHS in any country, so I had to watch this in Russian without even subtitles. I therefore didn't understand what was going on during the dialog, but luckily there's plenty of battle scenes and stuff that's easy to follow even if you don't speak the language.

The first movie covers the build-up of forces around the Kursk salient of July 1943 up to the massive battle of Prokhorovka (this is the only movie I know of to depict this huge battle). Lots of mock-up Tigers (and some not so-well made up Panthers) participate, eons above what we did around the same time in BATTLE OF THE BULGE with M48's pathetically filling in for Tiger tanks. Of course, since this movie had the backing of the Soviet government, there's plenty of vintage T-34's, T-34/85's, SU-122's, and IS-2's (briefly) on display. That, plus lots of extras and aircraft equal a pretty stunning battle just a notch below what Sergei Bondarchuk would put together. Impressive, but lacking any real dramatic punch.