Fact1: residential building happens to provide cover for Russian crossing point on Volga river, Fact2: wife and daughter were killed in air raid embittered, Fact3: Chvanov hatred of Germans comes from cruel treatment and methodical murder of family, Fact4: soldier falls in love with Russian woman named Masha, Fact5: Henze decides to set example by rounding up Russian civilians living in bombed out buildings
Output: The film opens in Japan in the wake of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. As emergency personnel work to reach some victims trapped underground, one rescuer tries to keep the victims calm by telling the story of how he came to have five fathers, all killed during the Great Patriotic War World War II. The trapped victims are young German students and the rescuers are Russian. In 1942, after the initial attack on Stalingrad, a small group of Russian soldiers take cover in a large five story residential building that happens to provide cover for a Russian crossing point on the Volga river. Five of these soldiers become the five fathers in the story: Polyakov Angel who had become embittered when his wife and daughter were killed in an air raid; Chvanov, whose hatred of the Germans comes from their cruel treatment and methodical murder of his family; Nikiforov, a talented tenor singer before the war, who had become a cruel and vicious fighter; Sergey, drafted into the war as a spotter; and Captain Gromov, a veteran and hero who leads the group after finding them. The soldiers encounter a young girl named Katya, living alone in the building after her family had been killed. As they spend the next few days together, the soldiers grow fond of her, and she of them. Germans encamped near the crossing are led by Hauptmann Kahn; a highly decorated, but disillusioned soldier who falls in love with a Russian woman named Masha, who resembles his late wife. She at first detests him, but soon begins to reciprocate his love, although they cannot speak each others language. Oberstleutnant Henze arrives to take command of the Germans. He chides Kahn both for his attraction to Masha, as well as his failure to eradicate the Russian soldiers. Henze decides to set an example by rounding up the Russian civilians living in the bombed out buildings, then burning a woman and her daughter alive. This enrages the Russian soldiers who ambush the Germans, killing several, but losing several of their own men in the process. The Germans and Russians then retreat to their own shelters to wait the others out. One afternoon, Chvanov teaches Katya how to aim her gun at a German washing himself at a water faucet and startled, accidentally shoots him, which causes retaliation that injures Chvanov. During one of his visits to Masha, Kahn promises to take her to safety when the time comes. On her 19th birthday, Katya is presented with a handmade cake from the soldiers, with a song by Nikiforov, whom she had earlier recognized as a famous singer. She is then given the gift of a bathtub filled with hot water, a luxury no one has experienced since the siege began. Sergey takes Katya to his old lookout spot, located in a building not occupied by either the Germans or the Russians. The two spend the night together, unknowingly creating the narrator of our story. After Polyakov ricocheted an artillery shell into the German complex, Kahn is ordered to begin the attack on them; he takes Masha to an abandoned building, hoping to save her from the coming fight. As she begs him to stay with her, she is shot by Chvanov for being a collaborator, enraging Kahn. Nikiforov is taken captive by the Germans, where he manages to brutally stab Henze before being killed himself. Henzes death puts Kahn back in charge. German reinforcements arrive with tanks that have the range to take out the Russian soldiers and their building. They open fire, fatally injuring Chvanov. Kahn and his soldiers attack, shooting Polyakov to death. Kahn then finds Gromov on the second floor trying to use a radio. The two of them shoot each other several times before collapsing. Sergey reaches them and uses the radio to order an air strike on their building, which is being overrun by German soldiers. Katya watches with a broken heart as the building is leveled, leaving no one inside alive. Back in the present day, the Germans are freed from the building. The girl to whom Sergey who had been named after his biological father had told his story seeks him out, and they share a moment of understanding before he is driven away.