Do you want to listen???

When I first saw Eastern Promises I simply liked the movie. Liked it enough to want to watch the movie again and clear out all the doubts and little tidbits of the movie that i might have missed.

Directed by David Cronenberg (A History of Violence), the movie is set in London and is dominated by the Russian mafia that exists there

The movie has strong performances from Viggo Mortensen (L) and Naomi Watts (21 Grams). Armin Mueller-Stahl who plays Semyon the head of the Russian mafia family also puts in a superlative performance.

The story is about the diary of a young Russian girl that is found on her person which is found by a Anna (Naomi Watts) in the emergency room where the girl delivers a child and then subsequently dies. As the gruesome details are revealed the plot develops as Anna follows up on the diary which incidentally is in Russian and his translated by her uncle.

Concurrent to this Nikolai's (Viggo Mortensen) rise through the Russian mafia is also shown although this rise has its own sinister purpose.

The plot has a twist at the end of the movie which puts in context the entire happenings of the movie.

David Cronenberg has a done an awesome job in directing this movie. Incidentally despite this being a mafia film, NO guns have been shown in the entire movie. The only weapons which are used are knives which features prominently in a 3 minute long fight sequence.

This movie also highlights the use of tattoos in the Russian mafia and their significance.

This movie is a classic and i loved every bit of it.

Eastern Promises at Rotten Tomatoes