Wicked 2012 Russian Tank Movie - The White Tiger

And on a more historical note, there’s this kind of White Tiger tank, which is non-fictional:

https://www.worldwarphotos.info/wp-content/gallery/germany/tanks/tiger/Tiger_winter_camo_Russia_5.jpg

@Gargantua:

“The White Tiger”

Full film available on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiGDJ5-dXaI

One of my Russian buddies sent me this link the other day.  For a Russian made, relatively low budget film, it’s surprisingly enjoyable; and there is some awesome intensity and decent visuals.

I’ll make it clear out the gate that the film is supernatural/fictional right from the beginning, it’s like an extended episode of X-files set in WW2 Russia.  A ghostly White Tiger tank is obliterating Russians from a swamp/forest on the eastern front.  It comes from no where, and disappears back into nothing.  A crack crew is assembled to combat it.

Is it one of those a-historical films with some goofs?  Yes it has some.  Russian soldiers running around with MP-40’s and a Tiger tank that blasts a shot every 3 seconds, but can’t seem to shoot when it’s targeting the main hero.

All the same - I thoroughly enjoyed it, and wanted to share it.

I scope it out.

I watched it.  I liked the tanks and nice pacing.  Looks like they were using real t-34s which they probably just got out of storage?  The Panzer V’s didn’t look right, but then recreating a real-looking Panzer V would’ve cost the whole budget I bet. (Although the ones in Saving Private Ryan looked pretty good… CGI?)

Have to say I was surprised by the sort of non-resolution of the film and the ending, which seemed interesting if wildly incongruent.  Who were those guys at the end?

Given the film’s idea re: the “evolutionary” impact of war on humans, I was sitting there almost waiting for an ending card saying: “To be continued…,” like the film was an origin story for a new superhero franchise.

Russia certainly has a unique film industry, especially when it comes to narrative structure. Anyone ever see the Day/Night Watch series?  Also Youtube used to have tons of old 1960s-70s Soviet WWII films that aren’t half-bad.

I also liked it a lot. First time for me to finally see some Russian tanks in action. It looked real too even though the story line was different.

Be nice if they made a Battle of Kursk  movie or something to that effect.

@Karl7:

I watched it.  I liked the tanks and nice pacing.  Looks like they were using real t-34s which they probably just got out of storage?   The Panzer V’s didn’t look right, but then recreating a real-looking Panzer V would’ve cost the whole budget I bet. (Although the ones in Saving Private Ryan looked pretty good… CGI?)

Have to say I was surprised by the sort of non-resolution of the film and the ending, which seemed interesting if wildly incongruent.  Who were those guys at the end?

Given the film’s idea re: the “evolutionary” impact of war on humans, I was sitting there almost waiting for an ending card saying: “To be continued…,” like the film was an origin story for a new superhero franchise.

Russia certainly has a unique film industry, especially when it comes to narrative structure. Anyone ever see the Day/Night Watch series?  Also Youtube used to have tons of old 1960s-70s Soviet WWII films that aren’t half-bad.

Ok, I rewatched the ending again.  I get it now.  But got to say, the guy who’s supposed to be Hitler doesn’t look much like him. He’s almost got blonde hair!

@Karl7:

Ok, I rewatched the ending again.  I get it now.  But got to say, the guy who’s supposed to be Hitler doesn’t look much like him. He’s almost got blonde hair!

I once watched a couple of Russian “dramatized historical fiction” movies about WWII, made post-war but while Stalin was still in power, and I must say that the weirdest part of them was seeing Hitler and his entourage all speaking Russian with each other.

@CWO:

@Karl7:

Ok, I rewatched the ending again.  I get it now.  But got to say, the guy who’s supposed to be Hitler doesn’t look much like him. He’s almost got blonde hair!

I once watched a couple of Russian “dramatized historical fiction” movies about WWII, made post-war but while Stalin was still in power, and I must say that the weirdest part of them was seeing Hitler and his entourage all speaking Russian with each other.

That is weird. They’re always speaking English in the movies I’ve watched. Who knew that Germans were trilingual….  :wink:

-Midnight_Reaper

P.S. Edit to fix spelling mistake.

@Midnight_Reaper:

That is weird. They’re always speaking English in the movies I’ve watched. Who knew that Germany were trilingual….

The two films I saw (I have them on DVD) are Stalingradskaya bitva (The Battle of Stalingrad, 1949), in which Hitler is played by Mikhail Astangov, and Padenie Berlina (The Fall of Berlin, 1950), in which he’s played by Vladimir Savelev.  The latter movie also shows, equally weirdly, Churchill and Roosevelt speaking Russian at the Potsdam Conference.  And as a minor trivia footnote: Hermann Goering is played by Jan Werich, who was the original casting choice for the role of Blofeld in the James Bond movie You Only Live Twice but who was replaced at the last minute by Donald Pleasance, allegedly because Werich didn’t look convincing as a villain.

In both movies, all the non-Russian historical figures are depicted as being untrustworthy or sinister or clownish (or all three).  Even the Russians don’t do too well: apart from Stalin, who’s treated as an all-wise demigod, and the heroic Soviet soldiers in the crowd scenes (who are safely anoymous, and thus who take nothing away from Stalin), most of the Russians – especially the senior officers – are portrayed either as irresolute, frayed-nerve idiots who need Stalin’s wise guidance or as docile lackeys who are awestruck by Stalin’s effortless genius.  (I was reminded of the robotic space gorilla in the cheap 1950s sci-fi movie Robot Monster, who says of his boss: “The Great Guidance is never wrong.”)  Zhukov is pointedly absent from the second movie, and is depicted as mariginal and ineffectual in the first one.

GAR

I think I found the missing White Tiger !!!

Now that’s an army I’d happily surrender to!  :-)

:-D

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beast_(1988_film)

This is another great movie, I thought.  its probably cheezy now but I thought the themes and conflicts were really cool when I was younger