Yevgeny Leonov Movies

The original title of the German-Russian coproduction To Kill a Dragon was Ubit Drakona. The "dragons" slain during the film's 118 minutes are symbolic, like practically everything else in the story. Adapted from a play by Yevgeni Shvarts, the film is thin on plot, heavy on philosophy. It's hard to say, but the reams of dialogue expounded by the main characters might be more digestible in the original Russian. Director Mark Zakharov had previously risen to prominence as the man behind the Soviet TV miniseries adaptation of The Twelve Chairs. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A much beloved comedy, Mimino tells the story of a Soviet Georgian helicopter pilot who is called Mimino (Vakhtang Kikabidze), which means "falcon" in that language. He is ambitious to become an international airline pilot and goes to Moscow and, with the help of an old friend, tries to get a job as an international pilot. In his Moscow hotel, he meets Suren, an Armenian, and despite the supposed historical antipathy of Georgians and Armenians, they become friends. They have both pretended to be participants in a seminar on endocrinology in order to get rooms at the hotel where the seminar is being held. He has a lot of wild adventures with Suren, and on his own. Much of the comedy pits ordinary people such as Mimino, who is from the countryside, against the haughty sophisticates of Moscow. Popular Georgian singer Vakhtang Kikabidze, who performs the title role, sang a song within the film which became a Soviet hit. This film won the Grand Prize from the 1978 Moscow International Film Festival, the State Prize of the USSR, and also a prize from the All-Union Film Festival. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This television film is based on the work of Alexander Vampilov, a Russian playwright whose death by accidental drowning in 1972 robbed the world of a gifted writer. His play The Older Son, is interpreted and directed by Vitali Melnikov. Melnikov's own cinematic skills successfully capitalize on the original play. The heart-warming human comedy begins in an unlikely time and place: a cold week-end evening in Siberia when two young men - a student and his friend - have just left their girlfriends too late to catch the last train to the town where they live. They try to find a place to spend the night, but no one trusts their demeanor. In desperation, they are able to get a place by using one blatant lie. They convince a father and his son and daughter that the student is really a "long-lost son" come home at last. They do such a good job that the story is believed and celebrations begin. Soon things take a turn for the worse, as the elderly father begins to appreciate his new-found son over his own two children. His daughter has an unsatisfactory boyfriend, and his son is chasing after an older woman - not making life easier for the father. He confides his lost ambitions of a musical career to his "lost" son, and the young student finds it harder and harder to leave quickly as he had planned. As the family situations develop over the week-end, they give ample room for several lively pokes at holes in the socialism of the day. Starshy Syn won a Special Mention for Cinematography at the 1981 Venice film festival. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi