ive seen this movie a few times and thought it was pretty good, and the reason for posting this is for others to see the movie and get some Vague idea what the people and fighting terrain in afghanistan is gonna be like.
and it should be a good movie to sit in front of th tv with an UN-loaded gun, aim and yell BANG at the afghanis.

(heres the movie details)
During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Koverchenko (Jason Patric), a young Russian soldier, is caught between his country and his conscience when his ruthless commander (George Dzundza) destroys a village. As the their tank lies trapped near the village, Koverchenko is labeled a traitor and left to die. After run-ins with wild dogs and rock-throwing Afgan women, he is rescued by an Afghan leader (Steven Bauer, TRAFFIC). The two unlikely allies then set out to destroy the Russian commander and his tank. Based on William Mastrosimone's stage play, THE BEAST is a haunting and unusual war film that has developed a fervent cult of admirers despite very limited theatrical play.

Yeah, I remember that one on video.  Thought it was pretty good.  But who knows where they picked for a location?  There's plenty of mountainous desert in the world -  how would we know how close it was to Afghanistan?

Maybe some film buff could dig out the details for us.

Who exactly are the Taliban in the context of the Soviet occupation and after.  Whats the different between them and the Mujahadeen?

Yes, a real good flick. I caught it on HBO years ago.

I was watching wing on the Disc channel.  They were showing a documentry about a Russian helicoptor and had tons of info on the Afghan fighting style.  The Afghans don't mess around.

Have seen it several times also, never, ever under estimate the people that you are playing the game with...........

I saw it a couple of times on video. Good movie.

I heard on FOX that the guys in Northern Afganistan are dying to kick Taliban butt, so perhaps we will have some support.

Saw that just recently. Good movie.

Didn't SOF or SAR/MGN run a story on soviet weapons recently. The author and his soviet counterpart joked about the lack of markmanship of the afghans on both sides. I think the quote was that the rebels were "born with a rifle in their hands" They both agreed that this was the furthest thing from the truth in their experience.

I never really paid it any attention until I saw the training footage on CNN this past week.

how can I see this movie?

The movie was made at least in part in Israel.

The Soviet T-62 is a real T-62. It appears to have been retrofitted with Ma Duce, which in turn was "dressed up" to look like a DShk-38 12.7 mm. I suspect the cannon is a British 105 mm, replacing the Soviet 120 mm.

You are right about where the movie was made. The gun is a US 105. The tank is an IDF T-62I. They captured so many in 73 that it would have been a waste not to use a few. The rifling in the bore (as opposed to the 100mm smothbore that should have been there) is one of only three equipment errors in the whole movie. Th other two were:

-The "HIP" helicopter, which was an IDF bird (and since HIPs were rare, we forgave them).
-The US style matching unit and antenna on the tank, again T-62I modifications.

Well, I guess you could also count the fact that they had five people in the tank, and T-62s just are not that big.

The flamethrower was even a real Soviet T-62 modification, although a rare one. I watched this movie many decades ago with a roomful of MI guys, and we were shocked at how accurate it was about the Soviet Army.

Not a bad movie, but the biggest flaw in the movie is that the actors never seemed Russian to me. They could have at least tried to fake an accent. They should have used real Russians who spoke English.

natez,

I thought the T-62 used a 115 mm or 120 mm. What about the heavy MG?

Mach1,

Do you think Russians sound like Russians speaking English with a Russian accent when they speak to each other in Russian?

Since being brought into service almost 40 years ago,, there have been many variants of the T-62.
Your run of the mill T-62 had a 115mm 2A20 main smoothbore gun, a single 7.62mm PKT coax machine gun and on later variants a 12.7mm DShKM anti-aircraft machine gun over the loader's hatch.  The flame version had the flame mounted coaxially with the main gun,, perhaps replacing the mg (known as the TO-62).

With the 105mm on it, It almost looked like a T55.

The IDF has a lot more converted T55's than T62's.

[right][img]http://idf-sp.tripod.com/images/Tirans1973.jpg[/img][/right]

[left][img]http://idf-sp.tripod.com/images/Tiran.JPG[/img][/left]

great flick.

try [url]www.netflix.com[/url]
just watched it again a few weeks ago.

back when it was first on cable,(1990?) that movie had a profound effect on, of all people- my little sister. she said she finaly understood my views. why it would be better to fight and die than be oppressed. go figure.

btw. looks like an israeli [b]t55[/b] to me also. t62 had an autoloader, and the t55 a teensy bit more room. i dunno, maybe. have to look closer next time.

I am nitpicky [:)] It bothers me when a "good" Movie could have been "great". You see it all the time in Hollywood. Just a case of business getting in the way of art.

I haven't seen the movie yet, none of the video stores around here carry it.  However, I have read some stuff about it.  It seems that the lack of accents among the Russians and no subtitles for the Afghans was done intentionally so that we would identify with the Russians and not the Afghans.  

You have to remember when this movie was released, the cold war was still going on.  Also, the Afghans were much more liked in America since they had kicked Russian ass.  For instance, a movie like Rambo III obviously played on these sentiments.  Whether this choice of direction is justified, I can't say, I haven't seen the movie.  Hopefully, someday I will though.