I wanted to love this film. I wanted to get up on my Ukrainian high horse and lecture you that you know all about the deaths that Germany caused in the Holocaust but nothing about the deaths that the Russia caused in the Holodomor. I wanted to say, “You. Must. See. This Film.” Yea… About that. Don’t. It’s TERRIBLE. Like, the sort of terrible where my friend and I went all ‘Mystery Science Theater 3000’ half way through, stopped trying to appreciate it, and just started flatly mocking it. For those who don’t know, the Holodomor was Soviet Russia’s deliberate infliction of famine on the Ukrainian people which killed millions of people. It is arguably the LARGEST genocide in human history. Arguably any film that brings it to light is important… Except this one. It comes off as a bad film school attempt to write a love story among tragedy. It is a ridiculously cheesy popcorn film that makes virtually no attempt at attention to details. First, it’s in English, not terrible in and of itself, but ALL the accents are different. There’s some Scottish, Irish, Italian, English… The Russians seem more like Mussolini’s Fascists than anything Russian. Without some linguistic distinction an important fact is lost: Ukrainians DON’T SPEAK Russian, they speak Ukrainian and the interaction between rural Ukrainians and occupying Red Army forces would occur with at least some difficulty, at least, the foreignness of the occupying force is ignored. There is nothing particularly likeable about the characters and their choices are ridiculous. The horror of the Holodomor is reduced to an inconvenient hunger and not the travesty that it was. Other utterly stupid things occur in the movie, instead of prostituting herself, the female protagonist poisons a Red Army officer, leading to Psycho-esque visions of his mother. Starving Ukrainian children come out of the forest a la Children of the Corn, and of course, the martial arts sword fighting scene in the burning building. What the…?! This film is a trash attempt to capitalize on a terrible tragedy in human history. The viewer, and the Ukrainian people, deserve better.