The 9th Company
| The 9th Company | |
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Film poster
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| Directed by | Fedor Bondarchuk |
| Produced by |
Alexander Rodnyansky Yelena Yatsura Sergey Melkumov |
| Written by | Yuri Korotkov |
| Starring | Fyodor Bondarchuk Aleksei Chadov Mikhail Evlanov |
| Music by | Dato Evgenidze |
| Cinematography | Maksim Osadchy |
| Edited by | Igor Litoninsky |
| Distributed by | Art Pictures Group |
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Release date
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Running time
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130 minutes |
| Country | Russia Ukraine Finland |
| Language | Russian |
| Budget | $9,500,000 |
| Box office | $25,555,809 |
The 9th Company (Russian: 9 Рота) is a 2005 Russian war film directed by Fedor Bondarchuk and set during the Soviet War in Afghanistan. The film is loosely based on a real-life battle that took place at Elevation 3234 in early 1988, during the last large-scale Soviet military operation (Magistral) in Afghanistan.
At a farewell ceremony in Krasnoyarsk, a band of young Soviet army recruits is preparing for their departure to their place of military service. On arrival at their bootcamp in the Fergana Valley of Uzbekistan they meet their drill instructor, Senior Praporschik Dygalo, a seasoned, traumatized veteran of several tours in Afghanistan and a brutal trainer who treats the recruits harshly and at one time suffers a nervous breakdown. During their training, the recruits overcome their differences and build bonds. Between the training sessions, they receive lessons in operating plastic explosives (which prompts some comic relief) and how to conduct themselves in Afghanistan (underlining the vast cultural differences between Western and Arabic culture).
On their arrival at Baghram air base they greet a group of VDV troops who have fulfilled their military service and are due to return home. One of the departing soldiers gives one of the new arrivals, Lyutyi, a talisman that he claims has kept him safe through several tours and multiple firefights. Homeward bound, the departing soldier's transport plane is hit by enemy fire from the nearby mountains and crashes, giving the new recruits their first taste of war.
Shortly thereafter, the soldiers are assigned to the 9th company, where their trainer and drill instructor, Dygalo, had previously served. The company is soon deployed to the front as part of Operation Magistral and is instructed to hold a nameless hill at all costs. After some preliminary skirmishes, the company's position comes under sustained attack by a large number of Mujahedin fighters and is overrun. In the end, the company holds the hill until reinforcements arrive, by which time seemingly only Lyutyi is still alive.
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