PIRATES OF THE 20TH CENTURY is a Russian thriller about hijackers attacking the crew of a Russian ship carrying medical supplies. It has much in common with the recent likes of CAPTAIN PHILLIPS and A HIJACKING but obviously feels a bit rusty and inferior given that it was made on a lower budget decades before. What is a surprise is how well-paced and fast this film is, the kind of thriller that keeps you watching throughout.Some reviewers on this site make this sound like a martial arts movie and there are a few fight scenes, but they're certainly not constant. The early fight back against the pirates is the main set-piece. The rest keeps the narrative going with various twists and turns and unforeseen events, and it's filmed in a gritty, realistic way which I found to be a nice change of pace for Russian cinema.

The partisan attitude towards 'popular cinema' is something unhealthy which should bother any genuine cinéphile. It is the lack of interest to appreciate unknown films especially if they belong to 'popular cinema' genre. This lackadaisical attitude of disinterestedness compels many viewers to denigrate popular cinema. This is an extremely unhealthy trend which is detrimental to the growth as well as appreciation of popular cinema. Russian film "Pirates of the 20th century" can also be said to be a victim of this bizarre syndrome as most viewers tend to associate Russian filmmaking to author films, films which are made by cinéastes with their own ideas about the whole process of filmmaking. What makes this film by director Boris Durov interesting is that it came at a time when advanced technology was not available in Russia to shoot adventure films. Despite this obstacle, this film has managed to be recognized as a thriller which reveals the goodness of Russian people. 'Pirates of the 20th century' was shot on an idyllic location with some good shots of underwater photography. Its success was replicated by other national cinemas too. For example : A Hindi language film "Samrat" with some famous actors was released in 1982. When it was shown during a prime time slot on India's sole television network 'Doordarshan' in 1985, according to a rough estimate "Pirates of the 20th century" managed to garner a total of more than 5 million viewers.

It was the first action movie made in banned in USSR Hollywood action style. It is not even close to the Hollywood action movies of that time. The plot is childish, the directing is so-so. This movie succeeded because it was first of its kind in Russia. Even though I watched it many times I have to admit it was kind of naive and I did not like it. This is not the best example of Russian action movie. This is just the first experience.

Officially the first martial arts movie in USSR cinematography featuring actual martial artists like Tadeush Kas'yanov and Russian Bruce Lee - Talgat Nigmatullin. Bad people highjack a ship in the high seas but fortunately just about everybody on board is a trained martial artist. A collectible for martial arts aficionado.