구 소련의 페레스트로이카 시대에 만들어진 가장 중요한 영화 중 하나인 이 작품은 스탈린 시대에 대한 코믹한 풍자와 개인의 정체성에 대한 고민을 담고 있는 흥미로운 우화이다. 모스크바의 기술자 바라킨은 지역에서 생산되는 에어컨 부속품 관련 지도를 위해 공장이 있는 작은 마을에 도착한다. 하지만 비서는 나체로 그를 반기고, 식당에서는 요리사가 권총으로 자살하는 등 마을은 엽기적이고 이상한 분위기로 가득하다.
Falling Star is based on three stories by the contemporary Russian writer Viktor Astafyev and centers on a young soldier on the front lines who is wounded and taken to the hospital. Once there, he muses about his childhood and a little girl he had loved - someone who could easily have grown up to be the nurse that is attending to him now. As he recuperates, he and the nurse fall in love and he very much wants to marry her. At this point, the nurse's mother comes for a visit and advises him against such an action because if they were to marry and he were subsequently killed or maimed in action - the fighting is still close to the hospital - the nurse would suffer much more than if he just left her alone. Now it is up to the soldier to make a decision one way or the other.
A Soviet cargo ship carrying medical opium gets attacked by pirates of an unknown nationality. The crew is left to die on a sinking ship but they manage to escape and now must fight the pirates for survival.
