dracones Mihai Viteazul is probably the greatest romanian movie ever. 1.A lot of Hollywood stars were supposed to act in this movie. But Ceausescu sayed now and it was a good thing because Amza Pelea acted at his highest skills. Just as he did in the role of Decebal an ancient romanian king (Dacii and Columna movie). 2.It had a few Oscar nominations. 3.It is a model for the stunt work. It has been studied before shooting other great historical movies such as Troy. In Romania after the Troy premiere there was a wide spread joke: "Yeah Troy is a great movie but there's something missing: Sergiu Nicolaescu, Amza Pelea, etc" :) Of course part nationalism but part truth.

alexdiaconu The historical facts: Mihai Viteazul was a Romanian ruler that reigned in the small principality of Wallachia between 1593 and 1601. In 1600 he bedazzled Europe by uniting Wallachia with Romanian-speaking Moldavia and Transylvania, for which he is hailed as Romania's national hero. It all sounds ferry tale-ish, but it isn't. Mihai was too ahead of his time. He had the guts to go to war with three empires (Turkish, Austrian and Polish) and found his death when he trusted one of them. But his accomplishment forged a landmark in Romanian history. The movie: First, it's the battle scenes. They don't come bigger than these and nobody can't take that away from Nicolaescu. He is THE master! Back then, when a movie of such girth was made in Romania, everybody got into it, from the head of state to the Army, so sky was the limit.I think the grandest scene of the movie is the one depicting the Turkish army in the marshes of Calugareni on August 13 1595. On that day, the all-mighty Ottoman Empire, in its heyday at that time, poured 120,000 soldiers into Wallachia to conquer it. Imagine filming that! Nicoleascu shot from a helicopter. It started from the back, with the scattered extras forming the rear guard and gradually progressing towards the front. The scale is huge and mind you, he actually used that amount of people, not the CGI tricks of "Gladiator". Just think of the props and coordinating those guys on a hot day of summer in the middle of a swamp.On the other side, as in every portrayal of a legendary figure, the hero hasn't the least of flaws: he is always brave (actually Mihai Viteazul means Michael the Brave), honest, nothing gets by him, always gives a moralizing speech before the battle yada yada. Man, didn't guys like Mihai or William Wallace ever had the slightest trace of egocentrism ? In that respect, there is another movie about Mihai Viteazul, called Buzduganul Cu Trei Peceti (The Mace With Three Seals), in which the hero actually has feelings, flaws and fears. Of course, it's directed by someone else.At times, the acting is childish, especially in face-offs, like badly rehearsed lines of a play. When it involves a third party, e.g. a soldier telling Mihai that one of his subordinates has just arrived, I can't help myself laughing at the poor timing of the actors. Oh, and it's always the same thing with Romanian scripts: no matter whether the character is a farmer or the Austrian Emperor, he always uses the same old precious and dusty lingo, something like saying "It gives me great pleasure to gaze upon your look" instead of plain "Oh I'm so happy to see you".All in all, I think 'Mihai Viteazul' is a good movie by most standards. It's the Romanian movie most seen outside its borders and a must-see within.

Beebenders Amza Pellea is Mihai Viteazul! Very seldom that you see an actor transforming itself so completely to bring a strong historical character to life. I can only feel bad for the rest of the world for not being able to see this movie. Sergiu Nicolaescu, the movie director proves that he belongs with the best of the historical genre. Time will prove me right, somebody, someday, will bring this diamond in the rough to a full shine. It is disturbing to see the people in charge of promoting Romania's cultural image can't seem to know how to promote some of it's best assets.

Ioan The question in title is maybe a critical question when commenting on a historical movie. The director especially, sometimes wants to "tell" too much of his peoples history and the movie began too quickly. But I think this movie succeeded to mantain this frail equilibrium between historical information and artistic part.Of course, comparing with Braveheart this movie isn't so realistic in images, has no such violence, but very real, battles, but it was filmed 27 years before and of course with some censorship involved. But it still is one of the great Romanian movies ever realised. The major critique, in my humble opinion, is a great king is a man too, and this aspect wasn't explored enough in this movie.Maybe the myth was more important than the reality? But the performances were simply excellent and this critique can be minimised.