V Yanyarya budet zhara... In January comes the heat...

I just watched this film this morning and I like it. From the trailer, I thought it would be more romantic, but turned out to be an above-average of Russian comedy. 4 good folks from schools got reunion in a summer café on the bank of River Moskva, and they had an unthinkable trouble to deal with check, though one of them is so rich. One by one, a friend left the table to find solution and everyone of them met with different stories. The rich one got caught, ended up in jail for a night with the help from other folks. Friendship never ends...

The film's idea is unique, given a try to bring out everything that happens in Russian cities right now, from possible street crooks and young "Novyi Russkij", to more serious ones, like problems with immigrants and skin-heads or racists. But the plot is somewhat too predictable and relies too much on coincidence. As you should know the slogan of contemporary Russia, "Russia - a country of possibilities"; so everything can happen and taking that into consideration, that makes this film not senseless at all.

However, I like it as another Russian guilty pleasure. As a foreigner studying in Russia, this film is good enough to entertain me and easily shows Russian young people's lifestyle (most of them are a part of "ribyata"(guys) from 9 rota). The soundtrack is quite impressed, given a combination of slow Russian "popsa" to Russian soft night-club-style hip hop, although. The ensemble, comprising of young Russian rising stars, did a great job. The director also did a fine job using every fantastic view of Megapolis Moscow that you can possibly think of.

It is hard to imagine if people outside Russia today would get the film, anyway (even babushkas who live in this territory for the whole life will have a hard time watching this one).

Thats one of the worst movies i have ever seen. But what a mighty advertising campaign it had in Russia! Watching this movie one cant but think again - cinema has become just pure business, it's not any kind of art anymore. This movie is a bright example of that. Same actors played in a movie before, which was quite successful, so the director of the movie made "something-who-cares-what" to get people, especially little naive girls, back to movies and earn as much as possible from that. The scenario is awful, but we could forgive that in a romantic movie, it should be all about love. We would forgive, if it was a romantic movie. But i don't even know how to name this movie, it's not romantic for sure, even though they tried hard to input something that at least looks like that. It's a meaningless fake, the whole movie is a fake. Pure "glamour from fashion magazines" in its worst meaning. Being a native Russian, i am really very upset that foreigners can see Russia from this point of view: skinheads seem to be everywhere, tourists are not safe, everything is so superficial. And in general, for a foreigner it would be much harder to define what the movie lacks, where it goes wrong, and where it misinterprets on purpose. Lets see ourselves, how much of bad taste is in the following: summer rain on the background of Christ the Savior Temple, gastarbeiters from former CIS countries on the ruins of "Rossiya" hotel on the Red Square (what for a picture is that?!),oligarch's son in jail together with an American tourist (both categories just don't get there),one (?!) currency exchange in whole Moscow as well as one taxi driver, so strange thief, doing strange unexplainable things, to say nothing of an unhappy girl gnawing her piano, but then, thanks God! becoming a happy striptease girl with a shy smile and eyes down. Resume: kitch, lack of taste, no meaning, waste of time.

I saw this as part of the Russian Film Festival back-to-back with "Day Watch", and i'd have to say that all those people that didn't come to "Zhara (Heat)" as well missed out.

I found this to be great on a number of levels, first and foremost the old routine of having old friends relate to each other once again, but also to be able to see a modern Moscow as perhaps not shown elsewhere. It's the old habit of the more successful foreign films being too stereotyped to be good that gets kicked in this movie, with the only thing that will remind you of Russia being the beautiful women and the shots of vodka.

The central character Llyosha was played exceptionally well, and this is quite simply a warm comedy of sorts, but still plays nicely once you get past the initial "trying so hard" that we can expect for a film out of Eastern Europe with Western undertones.

Watch it if you can, and before it gets adapted by Hollywood (you know it will).