Chapaev is the story of a real-life hero - “Василий Иванович Чапаев” who fought in both WWI and the Russian civil war.

There’s a monument to him in Saint Petersburg outside the Budyonny Military Academy of the Signal Corps and in Cheboksary (the capital of the Chuvash Republic) a whole branch of the Chuvash National museum is devoted to him. However, his significance in modern Russia is less as a historical figure and more as the central figure in this intriguing film. Chapaev the film is a major source of figures of speech that can still be heard 90 years after the film was released. There are several webpages devoted to quotations from it. The page I just linked to asks readers to vote for their favourites, and the winner was…
“Тихо, граждане! Чапай думать будет!"
“Silence, citizens! Chapay is going to think!” (which Chapaev says about himself, in the film he quite often refers to himself in this way.)

The script of the film is designed for a fairly simple public, who could relate to the characters and their way of speaking. Chapaev admits that he had only learnt to read 2 years earlier. Some events in the film are properly tragic, but, to the modern viewer quite a lot of it appears comedic. Overall I found it immensely enjoyable, even though I usually avoid war films.