The story is steeped in magic realism, well acted and quite touching in several moments.

My favourite character was the hunchback leader of the partisan gang, but everybody deserved praise (Santamaria was excellent as always, all but unrecognizable under a heavy Chewbacca - style makeup).

Franz chews every scene he's in, and even minor characters are well-rounded, from Irina to the wolf-woman to the partisan sniper.

Even the final battle scene is well choreographed, and makes more tactical sense than several big budget battles where the opposing armies simply rush at each other.

Definitely recommended.

A quite fantastical adventure that caught my eye out of curiosity, I went into watching this film blind without viewing a trailer, what wonderful surprise this film was in a good way, a rather odd but strange tale of a circus family of freaks caught up the horrors of WW2 and the evils of Nazism thru out the countryside, and how they grapple with being separated from one another, a mix of wizard of oz, X-men and Fellini, they meet various characters along the way in their journey both good and evil, this movie was rather long and some of the scenes dragged along, but it will hold your attention and that matters most, especially the second act of this film, when the drama takes a turn towards action, the war scenes were well staged and unedited as a matter of fact most of the violence was unedited but not in an extreme way, the Nazi army wasn't prepared for these hapless and uncanny heroes and their survival skills was put to good use, which I enjoyed a lot in a few scenes, if this film is available in your area, and you're in the mood for something entirely different than the normal, seek this one out.

Im not going to masquerade as some Hollywood critic reviewing on here like a lot of folks. But...just... wow, by far the most unique & electic story line I've ever seen. Interesting two hours in front of my tv.