See it – The ending ruined this one for me, which is a shame because it is a unique film. It's a sword and sandals movie about the Cossacks in the Baltic War, and stars Yul Brynner in the role that he was quite literally "born to play" (being Russian-born). There are sweeping battle scenes with hundreds of extras, and even a few swashbuckling sword fights. Unfortunately, Tony Curtis (as Brynner's son) hogs most of the scenes, and the battles are too brief. Every time a battle looks like it's about to get good, it will abruptly end. Honestly, the main reason I'd even see this movie is to watch the scene that undoubtedly was stolen by Monty Python's Holy Grail when the guy's pushing a cart yelling "Bring out your dead!" 3 action rating.

Released in 1962 a week after Lawrence Of Arabia, Taras Bulba, was not a thinking man's epic like Lawrence or any of the other epics of the time, such as Ben-Hur, Spartacus, El Cid, King Of Kings – it was more of a grand adventure yarn and critics and audiences of the time were just not that interested, despite the film having two big stars in Yul Brynner and Tony Curtis, and a director, J. Lee Thompson, who'd just come off a huge smash hit with The Guns Of Navarone. What Taras Bulba did have was an absolutely brilliant score by the great Franz Waxman.For me the Best Sequence in the film is the Ride to Dubno where the various Cossack legions meet up with each other in long extended gallop march sequence.This film is largely overlooked now despite some broadcasts on TCM where I had the privilege of seeing it for the first time. It appears to be a throwback to that epic film-making style in the 1950s and 1960s but appears to be a bit truncated in its length to retell the Gogol story. The subplot love story between Andrei (Tony Curtis) and Christine Kaufmann is uninspired to say the least. The one interesting fact to note is that Tony Curtis married Christine Kaufmann after meeting her on this film.

... even as a Coassack! Seriously though Mr. Brynner can play everything, as far as I'm concerned, and that in a very convincing manner, too! But although the film is called "Taras Bulba", it's actually son Bulba, who's playing the main character here (portrayed by Tony Curtis).I had the opportunity to watch the movie in a (blow-up) 70mm copy. Unfortunately the colors had faded away, but it still looked great. The battle scenes are especially good. But it's the nature of the movie that I liked, the depiction of a small group of "rebels" that tried to go a different way (if you see the movie, you'll know what I mean). There's a great quote from "Bulba Sr." (Brynner) about having faith in poles, just awesome!

While I admire Yul Brynner as Bulba, as well as those breathtaking battle scenes, I must say some idiotic historical inaccuracies in this movie took out a bit of fun while watching it.1st of all, costumes. Especially those silly Russian-style shirts on both sons in tavern scene. Polish army outfits.2nd - cossacks (ukrainian Cossacks - NOT Russian cossacks) were mostly infantry, they were renowned by being best foot-soldiers of their time. While many horse raiders look great on widescreen it's not really true.3rd - some music used in movie is actually Russian! Ukrainian Cossacks from 16th century sing Russian song from 19th century??? Kalinka-Malinka is NOT Ukrainian song! In general, while watching this movie I see a lot of Russian-based influences, interesting where and why they came from. In 16th century Russia was unimportant and weak country, still bearing heritage of Kyiv Rus' and paying tribute to Golden Horde in order to survive. Hence she has no significant, if at all, influence on her neighbors. But in movie we see Brynner speak with Russian accent, Cossacks sing Russian songs and dancing weird dances (this is NOT hopak, Ukrainian traditional dance) What we see here is yet another example of old Hollywood blockbuster movie made without serious historical research, and yes, it's really great that to-day movies are made using totally different approach - instant examples are Gladiator, Rome TV-series or With Fire and Sword.All in all, movie is good, but remember: Ukrainians are NOT Russians, and in Ukrainian language Zaporostsi is pronounced Za-po-ro-zh-tsee.