1993, the Beijing-Moscow train was full of Chinese speculators who had made a habit of selling cheap goods in Russia at inflated prices. However, the enterprising passengers are forced to give up their money: The train is robbed by a gang of bandits. A special group assembled by the PRC authorities to investigate this crime is sent to Moscow under guard. In the former capital of the USSR, the police learn that the bandits involved in the attack on the train are planning a daring casino robbery.
About train robbers and the Chinese agents who caught them in Russia – pure truth; In 1993, the Beijing-Moscow train was attacked and robbed by four gangs in turn over several days. It seems that everyone was caught, although not immediately (more than 60 people in total): the last criminal was detained only in 2011, but there is a completely separate film there (for example, a few years after the raid, he is hiding in a Buddhist monastery).
In 2018, based on this story, the Sino-Russian TV series “Operation Moscow” was already shot – fortunately, no one noticed, despite the participation of Nadezhda Mikhalkova. Now Hong Kong director Herman Yau, a director with more than 30 years of experience and a track record of more than 70 films, has taken on the plot, most famously including the trashy horror film “Ebola Syndrome.” “Mission to Moscow” is one of four films released in 2023.
I don’t really want to check what’s going on in the other three, but here the cinema, plus or minus, corresponds to the quality of the goods transported from China to Russia in the nineties – that is, in a sense, the form is brought into harmony with the content. But that doesn’t make it any easier. Yes, “Mission to Moscow” is, fortunately, at least funny – of course, due to the fact that it was not filmed in Moscow (the real city is shown only in newsreels and stock footage), which is why the Chinese 30 years ago opened Russian underground casinos (called there “Rasputin” Boney M. a rare opportunity to see how they imagine the sewers (they go under) and the sewers (everything there is covered in graffiti “NO GOD”, “HELL” and “DEVIL”); If they ask, tell them it happened like this). Moreover, this is a movie where a moped gets stuck, a fighter jet flies on horseback (Tom Cruise doesn’t have to worry anymore), and the bandits are largely caught because one of them can’t live without Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony.
But most of the time, Mission to Moscow manages to be completely unbearable. It’s hard to believe this only took two hours; This movie basically seems like it doesn’t want to end and goes on forever, like the Trans-Siberian Railway. It can be hard to figure out exactly what’s going on inside: The only thing that turns out to be more violent than the local robbers who, as a rule, don’t let women go free is fiction (sounds like the movie itself was robbed at one point).
After all, I want to hand over everyone involved in “The Mission” to be dismembered by the Russian chefs – and spare only Andy Lau (“House of Flying Daggers”), was blown here by an evil wind. One has to think that he is already suffering. We’ll drop you off at the next station.