Piranha Hunt (2006)
Agent of special department "Piranha" Kirill Mazur and his colleague Olga go to the far north with the assignment to liquidate an underwater secret weapon lab in the guise of a mutual vacation. All of a sudden, they find themselves in the world where civilization laws are forgotten, and this deadly weapons are kept by gangsters who are controlled by a new "master of taiga" Prohor, whose leisure time is spent hunting at humans. Mazur didn't know that he would have to trade his familiar gun for a hand-made bone knife, and save his companion and himself instead of saving the world. For them, this safari in northern forests would be no less dangerous as for the live targets.
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i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.
I gave it a 7.5 out of 10
Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%
The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
If you want to waste 2 hours of your life while sitting with a long face like me, waiting for some glimmer of something interesting or meaningful to happen while digesting appalling script and senseless and disgusting violence porn, asking yourself "why the hell am I watching this?", then watch this film. This is everything cinema should not be. A tragic example of when Russian film makers imitate the worst of western movies and computer games. "The Beach" and "Moscow Zero" are close, but this is even worse, if that's possible. This film is not something either the actors or the director will remember proudly, and they are actually not bad judging by their other work. The feeling this film gives you is like you've drank too much, been throwing up and have this sick and stupid feeling. Yuk.
A fun to watch action movie, which falls somewhere between James Bond and Chuck Norris movies (well, indeed, with a bit of Die Hard and Rambo accent). A Russian super-agent with bare hands (at the start) against a band of heavily armed hunt party lead by an arch-villain Prokhor, a sole survivor of an accident in a secret weapon facility. As you can guess, at the end the hero kills them all (a-la Norris), saves his girl (a-la-Bond) and the world as well. With all similarities to the major agent-saves-the-world series, the movie has a lot of Russian specifics and as a result could be interesting to watch for the lovers of the genre. Just do not dig too deep. Some parts of the plot are rather naive and some do not fit together well, but it was not made to think about it. Use it as prescribed - to relax after a long day of work.
It's not the best of films, nor the worst of films: interesting premise, but highly Hollywood-derivative. Still, the taiga is a unique setting and it was amusing to see talented dramatic actors take on action hero roles (Mashkov more successfully than Mironov, methinks).From a woman's standpoint, the best part of the film is admiring Vladimir Mashkov's buff body, especially from the back. My, my---let's see more of it someday! I realized this film was going to be trash when I started watching it, but sometimes trash can be amusing. The violent scenes were a turnoff, but grudgingly necessary to the plot.Overall, a B film. If you have nothing better to do, it's not a total waste of nearly two hours. In my opinion, Mashkov and Mironov should stick to better roles which highlight their tremendous dramatic talents (IMO, The Idiot, a Russian TV mini-series starring both of them, ranks as one of the finest films I have seen, ever.)
For the last decade or so, one of the main "topics" in Russian cinema was "Let's make a real blockbuster action movie! Our answer to Hollywood! " Obviously, whenever a filmmaker is concerned with "our answer to whatever" the final product will be a farmer's friend, but no one else's. We've seen a few decent wannabe-Tarantino / Takeshi Kitano style "action films" ( I still claim that Kitano's Brother and the Russian Brother have plenty in common besides the moniker) but their tries at something Lethal Weaponish fell flatter than the Turkish analogues.Well... no more.We finally got an excellent Russian action movie blockbuster. Which... is cool and all. More quality = more money = more quantity = more money = possibly more quality.The plot... is an action movie plot. The brave commando veteran (his former commando unit was called "The Piranha" and that's the only explanation for the movie's title you're going to get) and a lovely bio-chemist are sent to neutralize some bio-weapons left in an abandoned (flooded) military research center near the Chinese border before the land on which said research center is built is ceded to the Chinese. Things go wrong and they find themselves amongst the unwilling participants in the latest "Most Dangerous Game" remake - Taiga edition.Right...On the positive side - the movie takes itself as non-seriously as possible without turning into an outright spoof. Quotes, homages and outright "tributes" abound - all delivered lightly and ironically. Mashkov, who was wasting his unshaven charisma in a whole host of pointless films plays a hero at least as well as classic Bruce Willis on a good day. Mironov already acknowledged that he was channeling Garry Oldman in Leon and IMO he tops that performance. Good use of the an energetic soundtrack. The camera moves in a way Tony Scott can only have wet dreams about (not necessarily a good thing) Amazing energy and drive all around - the film just picks you and never let's you go.So... check it out if it comes your way. I honestly don't think you'll be disappointed.