What makes it different from others?

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I don't know if it's the not-so-good quality of the 2000s movies, or is it just the fact that all the Russians spoke German freely (even the ones that couldn't have had any experience outside of their usual homeland) that made me dislike the movie. Cheating on his wife did in fact bring out the human side of this hero. I'm disappointed with the movie throughout. Although it had some decent moments, a lot of it was over-extended and highly exaggerated. With so much potential to uncover many truths, it remained focused on the emotional and hospitable side of the Russian people.I don't know why you are so into the details of one German POW story, while skipping the lengthy evidence what bogus are the jew-escapes- from-German-"dead"-camps stories. In fact, every country makes its own heroes to suit their political needs. Some even fake whole historical events for the needs of others.

I stumbled on this movie on the Vangard channel. I watched it from about midnight on, so I was tired. I have to admit I was drawn into this film because of the nature of the main character. I enjoyed his changing situations and the make-up artist who made him look more of a despot than a human. This movie has a few areas that confused me. Like when he is being attacked by the wolves and he is transported to an native tribe/village? I also was sickened by the sudden violent attacks made by the fat river man. The movie lets you believe that our main man will survive anything, but then you get socked in the stomach by the films evil characters. I enjoyed this film. I would recommend it.

I took pleasure from this film =8-). I enjoyed it, and see no reason to diagnose its content to death, as so often happens within this IMDb venue of puerile reviewers begging attention. It is a good film with credible acting and directing. In the right mind-set, its flaws are easily overlooked. Its true story-line has obviously garnered interest from a plethora of international viewers, most of whom (as well, myself) are pleased with its content, acting, directing - and who have eloquently expressed so in their own words. I found humanity and justice within its depiction, the attendant emotions (oh yeah, I teared-up on occasion), and not just a little of history unbeknownst to me. My hope is, viewers can beg-off cultural bigotries of their own and work-through this little gem with an open frame-of-mind from the outset, emotionally digesting its often not-so-subtle atrocities and poignant beauty.

An entertaining film about Clemens Forell, one of the very few people that manage to successfully escape from the Gulag. A German soldier in World War II, Forell was made prisoner and sentenced after the war to 25 years in a labor camp in the most remote patch of Siberia, near the Bering Strait, north of the Arctic Circle. Amazingly, he not only escaped the camp but made it all the way from there to Iran mostly on foot (if you don't understand why this is an amazing feat, you can look at a map).The film is more sentimental and melodramatic than it should be, but is still a worthy and entertaining movie, even if at more than two and a half hours is a bit long. One of my favorite parts is when after escaping from the camp he joins a couple of gold prospectors (the no-good prospectors seem almost out of a Western) and they sail through a remote uninhabited river that crosses beautiful conifer forests (that part of the movie, though, was apparently filmed not in Siberia but in Belarus). Even though the movie is based on a real story, some scenes shown here are hard to swallow, like the idea that the camp commander in Siberia followed him all the way to the Iranian frontier only to let him go at the international bridge. My guess is that while the main story is true, the filmmakers embellish it quite a lot.Few known actors in the movie (at least to me), though I recognized Andre Hennicke and Michael Mendl, who played Generals Wilhelm Mohnke and Helmuth Wiedling in Downfall. Also, beautiful international model Irina Pantaeva (who is originally a Buryat, a Buddhist ethnic group in Southern Siberia) plays one of the Chuckchis that shelter Forell for some time after he escaped from the camp (another good section of the movie). Hennicke plays a fellow prisoner while Mendl, even though he is a German is one of the camp doctors (why he was allowed that role is never explained).Some viewers might object that the movie shows the Soviet guards brutality toward the German prisoners, while not explaining that the German soldiers during the war probably engaged in far worse atrocities. Up to a point, this is a fair objection. But one should be mindful that a movie dramatizes a part of reality (whether is based in a real incident or not) and is not necessarily a newspaper article trying to cover all points of view.