Every Saturday fireman Anton Kalashnikov welcomes his 14-year-old daughter Kira from the dance. TV, dumplings for dinner - a standard set of entertainment from a Saturday dad for a teenage girl. But on this day, everything went wrong. Kira rings the intercom, Kalashnikov opens the front door, but the girl does not go up to the apartment. Anton has to ask for help from his neighbors in a concrete box, breaking through human indifference and past grievances.
Tim, a child living in a medieval world, has been chosen to be the most powerful wizard of his time. Under the protection of teacher Udo and muscular swordsman Bullrock, with a beautiful, mysterious blonde woman Anu along for the ride, Tim travels to the Southern Castle to train under the powerful wizard Martirus so that he can defeat the evil wizard Tor, allowing the forces of good to reign for the next 500 years. His journey is filled with magic and endangered by the dark spells of Tor, who is determined to end the journey before it has a chance to begin.
Lenfilm's most recent major production spins a kind of historical fantasy based on real incidents that's full of ominous implications for today. One night, a patrol rushes into the chambers of the Russian prince Pavel, son of the Empress Catherine; the Empress has died, and Pavel is to be anointed the new Tsar. Thought to be feeble-minded at best and crazy at worst, Pavel soon lives up to his enemies' fears: he dismisses long-serving courtiers, demands that peasants only work three days a week, and declares that state officials should start their days at 5 am. Soon, it seems that everyone who can is trying to hatch some kind of plot against him - including his own sons. Sumptuously designed, POOR POOR PAVEL constrasts the imperial splendor of the court with the sordid atmosphere of conspiracies and backstabbing that comes to define these characters' lives.
It is hard to know the future. It is even more difficult to feel its inevitability. He is a tax collector. He has an inexplicable, supernatural gift to foresee the future. He is sent to where the impossible is needed. And he does not fail, until - she does not appear. Love is expensive. Give the Gift and love or continue to live an invulnerable wolf. But what he will choose - only God knows.
