Based on a True Story – “Defiance"

It was Daniel Craig that brought me to this movie, and the same applies to you, I believe.
But actually it’s quite a touching story, for it is true. It truly happened during WWII, in a forest in Poland (or you can say, in nowadays Belorussia, whatever…).

A group of Jews, leading by one heroic Tuvia Bielski, were hiding from the Nazi and fighting against all kinds of enemies (Nazi of course, plus winter, hunger, wolves, etc.) for survival. Such a story could be found in almost all countries, nations, races, just everywhere in the world. What makes this “Defiance” a nice piece is that it did not try to make the hero “too heroic”. He had desires, he had darkness inside, and he was weak, scared and even out of control sometimes. You will definitely not see such things in the portrait of a hero in any Chinese or Soviet movies. Although it is quite normal to Hollywood movies in recent years, it’s still good to see a well-balanced job here.

OK this movie is not 100% “fair” anyway: it surely left no mercy to Nazi, even the Soviet. And it simply “ignored” the fact that the youngest (and the only one currently alive) Bielski brothers, Aron, was charged for fraud in Florida, yr 2007.

BTW the story actually reminds me of Ghengis Khan: Both leaders here were hiding from the enemies in the forest, together with their fellows; both were good fighters with genius in strategy; both had the charisma of a born leader; both killed their own fellows for the sake of the whole group of ppl (Ghengis Khan killed his own half-brother, for the latter grabbed the food that was supposed to be distributed to the women and children in the family. In that sense, what Tuvia did in the movie looks just like a mirror to the great Mongol Emperor.) The difference is, no one dares to show any “dark side” of Ghengis Khan in any movie or drama, for he is basically the God to most Mongolians…

P.S. The actual Bielski brothers were all famous of their handsome, while in the movie they did not look so… Neither did I see much military training scenes in it, hence those women just “suddenly” knew how to use weapons like heavy machine guns (trust me, it’s not that easy…). Another miracle by Moses?