Once again Amazon Prime has come up trumps in delivering a high quality print of a film I'd never even heard of before watching. OPERATION 'Y' & OTHER SHURIK'S ADVENTURES, despite the awkwardness of the title, is a light and breezy comedy anthology from Russia. There are three tales here, all of them featuring Shurik as the main character, and actor Aleksandr Demyanenko is a delight in the role. Shurik is a high energy character, geeky looking, but whose drive and enthusiasm makes for a likable protagonist.
The stories are of differing quality and the first is by far the best. This is a long-running battle of wits between rival workers on a building site; the whole episode is constructed around slapstick humour and as a result it's frequently hilarious, with good production values. The inspiration is clearly the kind of physical comedy popular in Hollywood in the 1920s and 1930s and as a result this is a lot of fun.
The second story starts off in the same vein with plenty of hilarious book-reading scenes in which the principal characters are joined at the hip. It's light, vibrant, and funny, although less so when the story becomes a traditional love story later on. The third story is about a pretend robbery and is less interesting, although still not bad. I hope Prime open their archives to more Russian fare because this has provided an eye-opening experience for this viewer.
The stories are of differing quality and the first is by far the best. This is a long-running battle of wits between rival workers on a building site; the whole episode is constructed around slapstick humour and as a result it's frequently hilarious, with good production values. The inspiration is clearly the kind of physical comedy popular in Hollywood in the 1920s and 1930s and as a result this is a lot of fun.
The second story starts off in the same vein with plenty of hilarious book-reading scenes in which the principal characters are joined at the hip. It's light, vibrant, and funny, although less so when the story becomes a traditional love story later on. The third story is about a pretend robbery and is less interesting, although still not bad. I hope Prime open their archives to more Russian fare because this has provided an eye-opening experience for this viewer.