Taras Bulba, the novel by the great Russian author Nikolai Gogol, was turned into a 1962 Hollywood movie with Yul Brynner in the title role (and the unlikely Tony Curtis as his son). With The Conqueror (out on DVD), the Russians have their turn with the tale and the casting is more consistently believable.
Writer-director Vladimir Bortko achieves many cinematically powerful moments and delves with accuracy into the ethos and appearance of Gogol's medieval Russian setting. The heroes of this epic are the Cossacks, rough-riding democrats who love liberty, horses, vodka, their Eastern Orthodox faith and the land they roam, despising Western invaders (in this case, the Poles) who would trample them underfoot. At least as far back as Sergei Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky, Russian directors have excelled with costumed battle scenes against foreign tyrants. The color and drum-beating savagery are magnificent to behold.
