Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Bessie Smyth Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Petri Pelkonen This movie tells about the military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland.It was fought between 30 November 1939-13 March 1940.Talvisota (1989) is directed by Pekka Parikka.The script is based on Antti Tuuri's novel.The movie has got the finest actors playing their roles.Taneli Mäkelä plays Private Martti Hakala.Vesa Vierikko is 2nd Lieutenant Jussi Kantola.Timo Torikka portrays Private Pentti Saari.Heikki Paavilainen is Private Vilho Erkkilä.Antti Raivio is Corporal Erkki Somppi.Esko Kovero is Medical Corporal Juho Pernaa.Martti Suosalo plays Private Arvi Huhtala.Markku Huhtamo is Private Aatos Laitila.Samuli Edelmann is Private Mauri Haapasalo.Vesa Mäkelä is Lieutenant Yrjö Haavisto.Aarno Sulkanen plays Captain Sihvo.Esko Salminen portrays Lieutenant Colonel Matti Laurila.Kari Sorvali is Sergeant Major Hannu Jutila.Ari-Kyösti Seppo plays Private Ahti Saari.Esko Nikkari is Private Yrjö "Ylli" Alanen.Ville Virtanen is 2nd Lieutenant Jaakko Rajala.Eero Melasniemi is Private Eino Nisula.Pertti Sveholm plays Private Antti Jouppi.Kalevi Kahra is Mr. Ylinen.Leena Suomu is Liisa Hakala.Miitta Sorvali plays Karelian Woman.Leea Klemola is Aino.Ahti Kuoppala portrays Ship Captain.Ilkka Järvi-Laturi is Private by the River Bank.Santeri Kinnunen is Private.Mika Nuojua plays Fleeing Soldier in his debut.Eero Saarinen is 2nd Lieutenant Lehtinen.Martti Tschokkinen is Storekeeper.The movie is filled with great battle scenes and uses some cool slow motion.This movie really shows the reality of war.You see men going in pieces in bomb attacks, you see the fear on these men's faces.In this movie the war doesn't look pretty.

Michael A. Martinez In my opinion, this is exactly what a war movie should be. It sticks almost entirely to the facts, and even though there is a main character, the action is not glued to him. But furthermore, it all feels very comprehensive - beginning with the mobilization of the Finnish army to fend off the Soviet invasion, and ending with the armistice. The ending, while pretty brief, communicates more with a facial expression than any big final speech could. It's absolutely brilliant.Every element of war is shown or at least hinted at - the poor conditions of the front line, the morale of the troops, the bitter trench fighting, air raids, suicidal charges, sacrificial sapper destruction of tanks, etc. The tanks, uniforms, armament, AT guns, and planes all look historically accurate, and there's plenty of battles and explosions to keep even attention deficit viewers like myself awake through the 3 hour running time. Also exciting are the numerous Russian massed assaults with thousands of extras filling the screen, plus artillery blasting fleeing troops and dead bodies into the air.This is directly what inspired the Germans to make their similar violent and bleak anti-war film STALINGRAD (1993) with lesser results, which took another 5 years for Spielberg and Hollywood to digest, before we got hit with the current crop of war films from SAVING PRIVATE RYAN to THIN RED LINE, WHEN THE TRUMPETS FADE, to DAYS OF GLORY, Eastwood's IWO JIMA flicks, and "BAND OF BROTHERS". All these are done in a style which originated with this movie, the first real bloody hard-hitter of a world war 2 movie (even though the Soviet-Finnish war of '39 was not technically part of World War 2).Totally recommended to even the casual war movie fan. A semi-sequel TUNTEMATON SOTILAS (aka THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER) made in 1955, is not as good but also worth watching, and covers the continuation war which came a year and a half after the close of this film. Avoid the 1985 remake though.

Tero Nevala For being made by Finland this is a great movie and have more emotions then big Hollywood movies. You ca really see in this movie how bad the conditions were during the war. Its amazing how the Finns really could stand up so hard against communist Russia. And its a great how to see Hakala loose his brother and still keep his focus up and don't give in. Im glad that they have done this more dirty than the newer movies, conditions in war are dirty in reality. The Finns doesn't have much ammunition or clothes and was bombed with mortars but still they kept they faith up. The Russians pumped out mass-soldier attacked and was in the beginning pushed back time after time by the Finns, but after a time the Russians begun to take the control of the situation and Finland doesn't have enough men to fight. But a heroic try to keep the Russians back as long as they could.I love this movie, one of the best I ever seen.

tjuva I think this movie is one of the most realistic war-movies ever made. My grandfather fought in Taipale and Kollaa and wrote a book about it, and i think this movie portraits the conditions and the nature of the warfare there very well. The only thing that bothered me a bit is that the freezing weather doesn't really come up... the winter when this was shooted was one of the mildest (warmest) for years, while the winter -39 was one of the coldest in history. Of course, there was not much the crew could do about it. Anyway, a great movie, which i warmly recommend for everyone. I hope someone would also make a good picture of the ultimate frozen hell, the motti-battles in region of Suomussalmi, maybe of the point of view of the menaced Russian 44th or 163rd division. That would be interesting to see...