Paragraph 78

Paragraph 78 (screen name - § 78) is a Russian film by Mikhail Khleborodov released in 2007. The film was split into two parts Paragraph 78, Punkt 1 released February 22, 2007 and Paragraph 78, Punkt 2 released March 29, 2007.

The screenplay was based on a 1995 story by Ivan Okhlobystin.

Andrey Lazarchuk, Russian writer of the modern turborealism literature style, wrote a novel based on this film (February 2007).

Plot

Future: soft drugs are legalized, countries such as the Asian Union and the Latin States of America appeared. An assault group under the command of Gudvin (Gosha Kutsenko) breaks apart because of his conflict with Skif (Vladimir Vdovichenkov).

Five years later Lisa (Anastasiya Slanevskaya) left Skif and is married to Gudvin. Russia, the Asian Union and the Latin States watch closely after each other's WMD production cessation.

A state of emergency declared at one of the secret and per international treaty prohibited laboratories of the Russian Ministry of Defense on an island in the Arctic Ocean causes an emergency beacon to start to operate. Now the other countries can possibly locate this base. To prevent this from happening Gudvin assembles his former group. By that time Spam (Anatoli Belyj) is jailed, Luba (Stanislav Duzhnikov) works in that same prison as a warden, Festival (Grigori Siyatvinda) is engaged in commerce of banned drugs (lysergic acid), Pai (Azis Beyshinaliev) works in a casino, Skif ruins himself with drink.

Together they depart to that island to penetrate the base and stop the emergency beacon.

Cast

• Gosha Kutsenko as Gudvin
• Vladimir Vdovichenkov as Skif
• Grigori Siyatvinda as Festival
• Anastasiya Slanevskaya as Lisa
• Stanislav Duzhnikov as Luba
• Azis Beyshinaliev as Pai
• Anatoli Belyj as Spam
• Yusup Bakshiyev as Doktor
• Mikhail Yefremov as Prison commander

Critics

• The film was heavily criticised for strong resemblance to a number of films, including Resident Evil, Doom, Phantom Force, Dragon Fighter, and Aliens.
• The film was heavily packed by product placement as the recent Russian films Night Watch and Day Watch. This includes Russian Channel One, Fan chips, Men's Health magazine, Pikador ketchup, Mail.ru service, Radio Maximum, Golden barrel beer, Grand Prix vodka, Wrigley's Spearmint, Qtek S110, Creative player, Panasonic notebook, etc.
• Some critics noted the biggest "trickery" of the audience in the history of Russian film industry because the film was broken up in two parts at a cliffhanger.

External links

• Official website
• Paragraph 78 at AllRovi
• Paragraph 78, Punkt 1» at the Internet Movie Database
• Paragraph 78, Punkt 2» at the Internet Movie Database
• Baseline StudioSystems (2009-02-25). "Paragraf 78, Punkt 1". The New York Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/446989/Paragraf-78-Punkt-1/overview. Retrieved 2009-02-25.