The thing that I REALLY like about this film is the story and the poetic way in which it wants to develop. But I can't get past the bad thing, which is that it fails at making it convincing.. and both the comedy and the drama are extremely cheesy.I'm Russian and I don't like Mihalkov because of his vanity, it all seems like some sort of local thing between him and himself. For example, in this movie, there are several scenes that have nothing to do with the story and do not serve for comedic purpose (because were not in the least funny), and could have easily been left out. It is obvious he for some reason liked them and felt it was right to put them in the final cut. The comedy is BAD. The way comedy develops in a Mihalkov film, is usually by trying to have this sort of crazy mess at the beginning, lot of characters, goofy scenes that don't really have much to do with the main plot, etc. This has worked amazingly cool in many films because the trick is when it's done in an uninterested matter. But this film fails miserably at it, because it all seems SO extremely obvious and forced. The scenes last so long they become a desperate attempt at basically forcing you to laugh and have a good time. In the tragic aspect the film fails as well, not because of the story itself, but because it basically comes from nothing. Mostly because the 2 main characters, apart from having no chemistry between them, are both quite unlikable. I could not see anything appealing about Jane, she seemed totally ordinary and there was nothing beautiful or mysterious in her for which some young guy would fall. The scene where she meets Radlov is painful to watch, the script in that scene is idiotic. Andrei was simply too stupid. I love Menshikov but I kept feeling bad for him in this film, him playing a cadet at 38 it's ridiculous, all he did was constantly acting like a guy with some mental issues in order to appear younger. And his character becoming a mad man for Jane and feeling the most brutal adoration towards her makes no sense, not because he doesn't know her but because she isn't in the least interesting, and later she randomly jumps in his bed, right after telling him she was no good for him, managing to become even less interesting, plus skanky. On top of that, they both mess up with a character that was clearly there to make this sort of "villan" for the story. But actually, the Radlov character never did any harm to anyone and had no intentions of it, through the movie, Jane continued to make an idiot of him in order to use him for her business purposes, and Andrei egoistically puts him in an awkward position when he goes to propose to Jane. Then, Andrei publicly hits him with a stick and of course that ends badly for Andrei and Jane. Well, what did they expect?Bottomline, bad film, although it does have a romantic story even if it's not convincing.

I hardly had the patience to watch this boring and stupid film.I do not watch Russian cinema because I think it is a waste of time.It so happened that I HAD to watch this particular film.And it once again confirmed my attitude.Nikita Mihalkov is probably one of the worst directors today.I watched another film of his-"Victims of the sun "or something like that-it is probably the worst film I have ever watched.I simply can't stand his pretensions .The pace is slow,the characters are one-dimensional,the jokes are boring to death(the film attempts to be a comedy,mind you).Clichés about Russia follow one after another.But the worst thing about the film is that it is a narrow-minded Russian propaganda.The foreigners are either stupid or evil,they want to destroy good-hearted,innocent and naive Russians-this is the main idea of the film.King Alexander IIIrd-one of the most autocratic monarchs of Russia who persecuted all minorities is presented 100% positively ( and played by Mr. Mihalkov himself).This film was made to serve the rising Russian nationalism.In this way it is a political propaganda disguised as a historical comedy.It is not by chance that Mihalkov is one of the greatest supporters of Putin's autocracy today.

I stumbled on this film one night on TV. I hadn't heard of it, but I got intrigued immediately. It was the long version, so it got quite late.I didn't regret that one bit. It has a nice story thats seems to fit if you're willing to go along with it (one can always find a stick to beat the dog). It has witty, funny dialogs. Although it is a romantic story, it does not have the crappy all's well that ends well feel.The 2 main characters are very well developed (in the version I saw), they are not clear cut, one dimensional. It is true that some other characters are bordering on the slapstick, but I feel this is not overdone. Somehow it balances really well.Need I say more? Excellent entertainment (in my humble opinion).

I've seen movies from all over the world, a lot of them was American of course, but several of them came from Europe and Asia. But I can't remember ever having seen a Russian movie before. This was the first one and I must admit that it was quite surprising, although it wasn't an undivided success in my opinion.The movie tells the story of Douglas McCraken, a foreign businessman and inventor who wants to sell a new and experimental steam-driven timber harvester in Siberia in 1885. But not everything goes exactly as planned. To make sure that his machine is accepted by the Russian government, he'll need the help of his lovely assistant Jane Callahan. While she is on her way, she meets a young cadet and falls in love with him. But the lovely Jane has more admirers and after an incident, the love of her life is exiled to Siberia...Not everything worked, but overall I must say that this was a quite enjoyable movie. The main problem that I had was that it sometimes didn't seem to take everything very serious. The mix of drama and slapstick didn't really work very well and even annoyed me from time to time. Nevertheless, I must admit that there was some nice humor in it as well. For instance the sequence with the American drill sergeant who proves that he doesn't know anything about classical music, but who's too proud to admit that, is excellent. But still I think it would have been much better if there was less humor and more realistic drama in it. Overall I would say that the acting in the movie was good, although I wished to see Richard Harris in a bigger role. Now it just felt like he was in the movie because of his name, not because of his talent. I would like to end this review by saying that this is an enjoyable movie, even though it sometimes didn't feel right. I give it a 6.5/10. Perhaps even a 7/10, but certainly nothing more than that.