Cyborgs: Heroes Never Die series (2017)

 

 

            “Cyborgs:  Heroes Never Die” was released as a movie, but I saw it as a miniseries on Tubi.  It covers one week in the Second Battle of the Donetsk Airport.  This was 4 months after the first attempt by Russian-supported forces from the separatist Donbas People’s Republic.  In September, 2014, the separatists had captured several buildings in the complex and now the fighting came down to the main building with its terminals.  The fighting was for controls of floors.  The defenders had to withstand artillery bombardments, tank attacks, infantry assaults, and infiltrators.  The defense was so superhuman, the DPR soldiers commented about it on social media, calling the defenders “cyborgs”.  It was meant to be disparaging, but the Ukrainians adopted it as a badge of honor.  The movie got substantial funding from the government and cooperation from the military.  The government made no bones about it being a propaganda film.  It wanted the film to show the “choice between the Soviet past and the European future.”  The screenwriter was able to interview some of the veterans of the battle.  The original footage was about four hours, which was edited down to 113 minutes for theatrical release.  But then the footage was used to create a miniseries for television.  The film was acclaimed in Ukraine and it won several equivalents of the Oscar.  It won awards for  Best Film, Best Actor (Vyacheslav Dovzhenko), Best Supporting Actor (Viktor Zhdanov), Best Screenplay, and two technical awards.

            The series begins with the arrival of four replacements.  They have to drive a gauntlet of artillery fire to reach the airport.  In a common war movie trope, they reveal what motivated them to come to the hellscape.  One wants revenge for the death of a friend.  Another doesn’t like Russia trying to boss his country around.  One is a soldier who is just doing his duty and another is motivated by patriotism.  Most of the action takes place in the main building.  In the second episode, they have trapped several separatists in the basement.  In the third episode, they are hunting the sole survivor.  Then their position becomes similar to the Alamo.  There is an awesome firefight for control of one of the terminals that is marred by difficulty in knowing who is who. During one of the lulls in combat, they pick up a radio broadcast that refers to them as “cyborgs”.  In the fourth episode, they learn that they are to be pummeled by a barrage of rockets.  They all agree to stay even though it will be suicidal.

            “Cyborgs” is a small unit dynamics movie set in an historical battle.  The unit is heterogeneous and there is some dysfunction in it.  The series may be propaganda, but not all the soldiers are portrayed as superpatriots.  Most of the men are common stereotypes found in war movies.  The men are known by their nicknames.  The main character is “Mazhor” (Makor Tikhomirov).  He is a famous musician who could have avoided the draft, but enlists out of idealism.  His character arc is a familiar one as he goes from being insubordinate to being a solid soldier.  Subota represents the younger generation with his use of social media to keep contact with the outside world.  He posts a selfie when he is wounded.  The fighting is described by one of the men as like a video game.  Serpen is a history teacher who is a patriot.  He and Mazhor often butt heads.  Serpen accuses the younger man of being a pansy liberal whose generation for Ukraine’s losses early in the war.  The series is used as a platform for discussion of various attitudes toward the war.  Staryi (“old man”) is a veteran who came out of retirement because he heard there was a movie that needed a father figure.  Just kidding.  The actors are all able.  The character development is nicely done and I assume the series was better at this than the movie.  There is a lot of soldier talk, but it is interesting

            Over the four episodes, we get a little bit of everything, except the home front.  The combat is well done and fits firmly in the new frenetic style.  But the series is not about the battle so much as it is about the defenders.  It is the story of a squad that faces many hardships.  It starts out looking like a “who will survive?” movie, but not to worry.  The characters are appealing, so you don’t want them whittled away.  While the concentration is on the squad, the series does not do a good job with the big picture. This was probably due to most Ukrainians being familiar with the battle, but viewers from other countries might be unsure what the war is all about and what in happening elsewhere.  However, although foreign viewers may not know much about the War in Donbas, it is a primer on the Ukrainian soldier.  It shows why Ukraine has been so hard to crack by the Russians. The series is an accurate portrayal of the battle for the airport.  It joins other series like “The Long Road Home” that realistically depict urban warfare in the 21^st Century.

            I was not expecting much from this series partly because although Tubi is an excellent platform for war movie buffs, it’s movies and series are not all high quality.  This series is the exception to that rule.  I feel most war movie fans will enjoy it.  Should I mention there are no women in it?

GRADE  =  B