Those who disliked the film, should watch the series.

I, like many of you was somewhat dissapointed with the film. I felt that it was just a sappy melodrama with an intresting historical setting. But as it turns out the film was basically just a taster. Right now the 1 russian channel is showing the whole film as it was ment to be shown, a series close to 10 hours long. Every charachter is much better developed and a lot more are introduced. There is a lot of historical and personal information. The series gives a thorough and rather impartial view on the civil war, unlike the film which felt rushed and extremely "pro-white".
It's understandable why they released the film first. They clearly needed to recoup the cost of production, as this film/series was the most expensive in the post-Soviet russian history. But it's clearly visible that the money was really well spent, and i hope that this trend of making high quality big budget series continues.