Piranha hunting

Prologue. In the now distant Soviet times, in the depths of the Siberian taiga , a secret laboratory was built at the bottom of a picturesque lake, in which a terrible chemical weapon was developed under the mocking name "Joy of Life". Once, on the very day when a laboratory employee brought her young son into it, an accident occurred in the laboratory and a deadly substance escaped from the closed zone. An alarm triggered the security system, all the doors to the laboratory were blocked, the laboratory itself was flooded with water (water deactivates this poisonous substance). Everyone died, only a boy whom his father managed to push into the gateway , climbed to the surface and remained alive. But all his attempts to talk about what had happened were futile; no one believed the boy, because officially the laboratory did not exist in the world ...

Our days. As a result of negotiations on the border, the territory on which the lake with the flooded laboratory is located may soon depart to China . Under the guise of a joint vacation, the Piranha special forces instructor ( Navy special forces ) Kirill Mazur ( Vladimir Mashkov ) and military chemist Olga ( Svetlana Antonova ) are sent to Siberia with the task of deactivating the remaining stocks of the substance in the laboratory and blowing up the laboratory itself. They carry out the task, but immediately after the destruction of the laboratory, they are captured by the new "master of the taiga" Prokhor ( Evgeny Mironov ). Prokhor - that same boy, the only survivor of the accident, now - a very wealthy and powerful businessman, holding in his fist a local crime and even law enforcement agencies. He managed to get to the laboratory, to withdraw part of the deadly substance, and now he is going to resell Joy of Life to terrorists from the Red Islam group. But first, Prokhor is going to indulge in his favorite pastime - hunting for people, among whom are Mazur and Olga. Mazur has no choice but to accept the rules of the game, lead a group of living targets and make sure that this safari is no less dangerous for hunters than for "game". The situation is complicated by the fact that none of the fugitives, except Mazur, has serious skills for survival and combat in the wild, and they are almost unarmed. Paul is leaving. Vika is killed by Winter. Mazur and Olga come to the ferryman’s house, but this turns out to be an ambush, and Mazur kills the ferryman and his wife. Soon there comes Prokhor. The head of Prokhor’s guard, nicknamed Sivy, upsets the owner, and he kills him. Mazur and Olga come to the barbecue, there Olga is kidnapped. Visitors to the barbecue and the owner are Prokhor's henchmen, and Masur kills them. As a result, only Mazur, Olga and the runaway recidivist Zima ( Sergey Garmash ) get to the populated areas, but there Winter “surrenders” Mazur to Prokhor and eventually dies. Masur kills the people of Prokhor. Cyril manages to catch up with Prokhor. They fight on espadrons on the roof of a moving train. Prokhor dies.

1. TAR - Evenk Blues
2. Ganduras - “Captain”
3. Tar feat. Swamps - “Evenk Theme”
4. TAR & Venue feat. Vera Aloe - "What was he ..."
5. TAR - “Taiga Theme”
6. For Money - “I want to live”
7. Vera Aloe - "Before the Sky in the Eyes
8. TAR - "Death of the Huntress"
9. TAR - “Wiki Theme”
10. Slot - "Bullet"
11. beZ bileta feat. Swamps - “Siberian Hunt”
12. TT-34 - The Other
13. TT-34 - "Slow-motion"
14. beZ bileta - “Get ready for battle”
15. Ganduras - "Special Forces"
16. beZ bileta - “Fight. Factory"
17. Tar feat. Marshes - “Evenk Blues (Original)”
18. TT-34 - “Two Steps to the Sky”
19. Shnel Sprechen - Ghetto Disco
20. beZ bileta - “On Fire”
21. Neonaut - Polaroids
22. Rob Terry & Mesmer - “Piranha Mix”
23. TAR - Farewell

• The filming period of the film lasted 48 days. The shooting took place in the Republic of Karelia ( Belomorsk city ​​- Lake Plotichye (Mylnoe), where the taiga and the hunting itself were shot, as well as several scenes in the city itself, then several days in Moscow - underwater shooting. A caption in the taiga was built near Minsk ". The cinematic settlement immediately became a local attraction.
• Mashkov and Mironov starred in many films together ( Do-It-Once!, Limit , Mom , Idiot , Ashes ). However, in this tape the actors for the first time changed their usual roles: Vladimir Mashkov plays a positive hero, Evgeni Mironov - a villain.
• The idea to dye your hair white belongs to Evgeny Mironov himself. He considered that the white color of his hair would give stiffness to his hero.
• Actors perform almost all the tricks in the film themselves. Vladimir Mashkov made this an indispensable condition for his participation in the film.
• The film crew spotted a former GRU commandos who conducted a master class on survival in the forest and making "self-made" weapons: bow, bowstring, arrows.
• In the episode with the production of the bowstring, Svetlana Antonova really cut her own hair - the director considered that real feelings could be displayed only in this case.
• A directorial (television) version of the film was also released, lasting approximately 167 minutes.

• The film and the book of the same name are very different in plot. In particular, the book does not contain any chemical weapons and special tasks, and Mazur and his wife Olga (from whom the heroine Svetlana Antonova was made in the film) on vacation just float on a raft along the taiga river, where Prokhor’s assistants capture them. If the “taiga” part of the adventures of the film’s heroes is sustained more or less in the framework described in the book, then the “urban” one is invented anew. In the finale of the novel, Olga dies, while in the film she manages to survive in a practically hopeless situation.
• The film does not focus on this, but the name of the hero Mironov (Prokhor Petrovich), his woman (Sinilga), the scene of the painting (taiga), clothing of the inhabitants of the settlement are direct references to V. Shishkov’s novel “ Ugryum River ”. According to the plot of the book, Prokhor fanatically followed the “Sullen River”, and all his subordinates at the “settlement” played the roles of certain characters of this novel.
• The main aspect of the plot - the hunt for people - is also different in the book and the film. In the book, this hunt is a kind of business for Prokhor Petrovich inviting foreigners to it, while in the film hunting is just a “game” for the “master of the taiga”.
• In 2014, Motor Film Studio shot a new film adaptation of Bushkov’s book - the film “ Piranha Trail ”.

Roman Volobuev , " Poster ":

I don’t know how to correctly divide laurels and who is the main fellow - the director Kavun, who took all these outrageous aspects of Mashkov’s physiognomy against the backdrop of taiga sunsets, or the owner of the physiognomy; producer Todorovsky or still playwright Zverkov (former OSP-studio scriptwriter and, oddly enough to realize this, apparently, the main hope for Russian film dramaturgy today), writing on top of Bushkov’s plot of real Montipaitonism (“If these weapons fall into the wrong hands, half the world will die! ”-“ Um. And if in those, then all? ”). And by the way, in terms of the search for a national movie hero, this is a grandiose step forward. True greatness is usually born - at the junction of heroism and idiocy ^[3] .

Alex Exler , Exler.ru:

... there is - quite a worthy action movie, which I looked even with some pleasure. We will not discuss the script, because the logic of the scriptwriters of the militants traditionally has nothing to do with the universal logic, but everything else has been done correctly, dynamically, excitingly and aggressively. If before, when ours tried to imitate Western militants, it looked rather poor, but now everything looks quite worthy. For entertainment, dynamism and humor, he is ready to put a solid four, and acting is even better here than is usually expected in action films ^[4] .

Yuri Lushchinsky, “KG-Portal”:

... the picture famously and confidently shows a set of effects at the level of a typical action movie, and it certainly doesn’t have any complexities from its sample-set-nowhere plot. It does not get dirty with high heroic pathos. At any opportunity, sharpens - most often, successfully. But with all this, the “Hunt” has nothing of its own. She is completely devoid of personality and even at her best in the patent office she has nothing to do - they will laugh. The actions of the last decade, under the yoke of cruel selection and competition, only did that they tried to acquire their own face in order to stand out from the gray mass as brightly as possible. Fortunately for the director Kavun, there is no gray mass in our cinematic reserve. To his misfortune, when something more worthy comes out, the “Piranha Hunt” may well become one ^[5] .

Katerina Tarkhanova, Film.ru :

So filming today is indecent ... <...> Obscene - that everything is clear literally from the first minute. Retelling the plot makes no sense, since in the absence of at least some surprises, everything will be a spoiler, each of the predictable frames. At the “ Empire of the Wolves ” the whole first hour you don’t understand a damn thing at all and catch every sound, look, turn of the screw and weather conditions, trying to figure it out. On the other hand, “ Heavenly Captain and the World of the Future ” is much less mysterious, but there are so many twists and turns, plus super-ingenious roles and dialogs against the background of unprecedented special effects that if you go out to smoke, you will lose some of the pleasure. In The Piranha Hunt, they were not at a loss for inventions. One phrase Mashkov, which is worth remembering ("And this is normal"). Purely physical forms of Svetlana Antonova, but only until she opens her mouth. “Where did you hurt you?”, “Where did the blood come from?”, “Is the temperature really?”, “Urgent doctor !!!”, “How could you, my dear, dear, beloved, the only one ...” - and a kiss on the diaphragm. The ultimate dream of the heirs of Dostoevsky’s thrillers ^[6] .

Andrey Plakhov, Kommersant :

The genre suffers any stupidity and leaves little room for originality. The geopolitical motivation of the expedition is good, however: soon a piece of territory with a lake should go to China: a hint of an anti-people government ? <...> Timing of shock episodes is also good. Exactly in the 40th minute, when the idiocy of the plot can no longer withstand its own load, there is finally a meeting of Vladimir Mashkov with his sworn friend-antagonist in life and in art. Evgeni Mironov, playing the villain Prokhor, appears in utterly utter form with streaked hair and other gadgets ... ^[7]

Roman Korneev, "Motion Picture":

Remaking quite a thrash-action movie plot of Bushkov’s novel into a sci-fi action movie is also quite within the framework of tradition. So I hear this dialogue between the scriptwriter and the producer: what, is going to Siberia on vacation? - yes, so in the book. - with my wife? - with his wife. - no, it’s not so interesting, let him go not on vacation, but work, and not with his wife, but with an erotic colleague from whom he will save the world all the way. In our filmmaking, this does not happen now ^[8] .

• Movie site
• Piranha Hunting on the Internet Movie Database