1 star rating bombed by unreleased and unspecified countries.

Our film Sunray: Fallen Soldier released yesterday in the UK and US. However, in the couple of days running up to the release we experienced a large number of 1 star ratings largely from unspecified countries. Only 15 of the 1 star reviews can be attributed to a country where the film has been released. The remaining 28 1 star reviews are from Russia and other locations where the film has not yet been sold or released.

Given that the film is created by and starring UK Armed Forces Veterans and is military in nature - we can't help but wonder if many of these negative ratings are from countries that don't like the UK Armed Forces (Russia/China), who haven't seen the film and are leaving ratings on a political bias rather than the wether they actually watched or enjoyed the film.

I appreciate how the IMDb system works to weight ratings to produce a more accurate final score. I also appreciate that we are a small independent film and we do not expect to have a high score - however, our rating spread does feel strange with such a high number of 1 star ratings.

I'm not sure if there's anything that can be done, but we are also worried that given this is our release weekend, a targeted rating attack may put people off buying the film as the IMDb rating is so prominent and something that a lot of people judge a film on. Because of this, is it possible to at least have the rating reviewed and, if possible have any scores removed that do not originate from countries that the film has been released in? The film is currently only available in UK, US, CA, Australia, Benelux, Germany.

Many thanks,

James