Taras bulba. the american version focuses way too much on the love story. The sets are awfull. Taras does not even get burned at the stake.

The russian verssion is better. But it still misses the point. It plays it straigth while the book is suposed to be satire. They kill his wife at the begining using it as a justification for the war, when she should die at the end as a consequence of taras being an ass.

The point of the book is to show that the myths of the russian frontiersman are bullshit, because if they really acted like taras does they would all get whiped out.

Gogol is still an arch reactionary and you can tell he geuinley beleves some of the things he is moking. So its suposed to have a silly ironic self mocking sligthly nhilist tone. Remininicent of a lot of stuff in the internet. But both adaptations play it straigth and pay too much atention to the polish girl.