Maidgethma
Wonderfully offbeat film!
AniInterview
Sorry, this movie sucks
Lela
The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.
Isbel
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
Kirpianuscus
Three stories about a young man - Shurik and his adventures. for the fans of Soviet comedies from "60-"80 - nothing new. for the viewer from East Europe, all familiar. because the moral lessons, the romanticism , the gags - inspired by American mute comedies , Yuri Nikulin ,Aleksandr Demyanenko are pieces of a cinema who defines the Comunist period in profound sense. and, maybe, this is the difference of perception between different European publics.the work site, the emotions beyound an exam. the citizen lookout for protect the proprieties of the state are the small pieces defining a period, a political system and, sure, a kind of public.
Leofwine_draca
Once again Amazon Prime has come up trumps in delivering a high quality print of a film I'd never even heard of before watching. OPERATION 'Y' & OTHER SHURIK'S ADVENTURES, despite the awkwardness of the title, is a light and breezy comedy anthology from Russia. There are three tales here, all of them featuring Shurik as the main character, and actor Aleksandr Demyanenko is a delight in the role. Shurik is a high energy character, geeky looking, but whose drive and enthusiasm makes for a likable protagonist.The stories are of differing quality and the first is by far the best. This is a long-running battle of wits between rival workers on a building site; the whole episode is constructed around slapstick humour and as a result it's frequently hilarious, with good production values. The inspiration is clearly the kind of physical comedy popular in Hollywood in the 1920s and 1930s and as a result this is a lot of fun.The second story starts off in the same vein with plenty of hilarious book-reading scenes in which the principal characters are joined at the hip. It's light, vibrant, and funny, although less so when the story becomes a traditional love story later on. The third story is about a pretend robbery and is less interesting, although still not bad. I hope Prime open their archives to more Russian fare because this has provided an eye-opening experience for this viewer.
revere-7
O.K., before I review this DVD (it's actually more than one "movie"), let me disclose a couple facts. First, apart from the unparalleled works of Eisenstein, I am not a huge fan of Russian Cinema. I find much of it ponderous, and overly bogged down in State approved propaganda.Operation "Y" or Operatsiya Y i drugiye priklyucheniya Shurika (Operation Y and other Shurik's Adventures) as it's known in Russian, is the most popular Soviet Era comedy, possibly the most popular Russian comedy of all time. So, despite the double negative of Russian Slapstick, I had to give it a look.It's hard to hate Shurik's adventures, but if you're not a slapstick fan, they're not really going to fully win you over either. Shurik is a young go-getter in the vein of Harold Lloyd's 'Glasses Guy' (Shurik is also bespectacled) and his Adventures fall somewhere between Charlie Chaplin and Benny Hill both chronologically (since it was released in 1965) and stylistically. While the vignettes aren't as charming as Chaplin, they are, mercifully, less annoying than Hill, and thankfully, the Soviet propaganda while undeniably present is set to a very low pitch. Not being a fan of the genre, I'll refrain from actually endorsing or cautioning about this film collection, but I will say, exhaust the Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd cannons (and perhaps the cartoons of Chuck Jones too) before moving on to these.
Michael Palin
It is one of those 'must' soviet films that any educated man should see. Most talented actors, really cleverly made script and all, and also containing many words and phrases that got into lexicon. Nikulin as always geniusely acts both the facial expressions in the song "Postoy Porovoz", and the ones in other scenes (like the fight with Shurik). I could say that the song alone is enough to watch it, even for those who did not directly experience that kind of life, it would still cause a sense of cheerful nostalgy. Morgunov - also one of the most talented and known soviet actors, for those who ever liked him - it is most definitely one of his best pictures. Few more can be said, I mean - just watch it.
