Having read the book it was difficult to imagine how this could be filmed whilst preserving both the horror and the black humour of this true story. Although having to leave out quite a bit of the history it managed to keep the essentials: to tell the shocking experiences of these women during the fall of Berlin to the Red Army but to end on an uplifting note.
This started so well but soon became rather plodding and meandering, almost plotless.
However, titles at the end reveal it was based on a book written soon after the war by women who were there.
I must admit what surprised me here was how the women in Berlin seemed to get on with the Soviet soldiers. Previously I had thought there was just brutality and rape. The way the book showed the women getting on with the soldiers caused outrage and the book was banned, I think.
I liked the Mongolian Soviet soldier character - I have never see such a character before in a film. We even get some Mongolian throat singing!
There are some great war movies, DOWNFALL is one I can think of and the classic, though others which deal with the end of the war and the invading Soviets. Worth watching them too if interested in the subject. GENERATION WAR is a great German TV series too.
So this is interesting rather than effective, and really overlong. But worth watching. 3 stars