O Duelista

This was one of the best period movies I have seen in quite a long time, if you are interested in Russian Culture or have been to St. Petersburg, speak Russian and German you may even like it more. I thought the movie was riveting, suspenseful, and engrossing. I found it hard to take my eyes off the screen, and will watch it again with my wife. The sets, costumes, locations, were as good as it gets. A must see for a foreign film.

I've seen so much shitty movies with good ratings lately that this one lifted my spirits.

This film is very entertaining.

There was a time when honour and real men existed, what a mediocre epoch we are living today with our despising values and degenerated society.

Good acting and nice setting.

Saw it at TIFF 2016.

The sets and costumes are great and the story is engrossing, but be warned that this film is *extremely* violent in places. "Onegin" this is not!

Also, when they are speaking German, there is a Soviet-style voice-over instead of subtitles, so you can't actually hear what the actors are saying.

Overall, it was a very interesting experience!

I recommend seeing it if you are at all interested in Russian culture, but sadly this film is likely to be too lowbrow to meet the approval of the art-house crowd.

"The Duelist" turned out unexpectedly engaging to me. Dark, bloody, yet beautiful. The dark side of honor and the dark side of beauty.

Not historically accurate, yet very, very immersive. Most technical details are plain false. But that aura of Russian Grand Society feels so much true, so natural!

The best definition I could find for this movie is "Noir, transferred into the XIX-th century, Saint-Petersburg, Russia". There's much in common, really. Blood, death, wounds, tortures, nudity... plenty of this. As well as desperation, infamy, cruelty, scheming, femme fatale. Everything you can find in a typical noir. Only the place would be the capital of Russian Empire. Vast palaces, dirty streets, crowded soirees, the shade of the Royal Family, officers, nobles... and the duels!

A rare gem of late Russian cinema, really. Truly underrated.

I must say that the movie I watched had a very broken english translation that took a great deal of my own subjective translating. I really liked it though.

This film is about, what essentially comes down to, a hired gunman. A nobleman pays for someone to stand in for nobility at time when the only price for honor is blood. There are backstories which twist and turn the film in places which helps to make this a nice thriller.

I personally didn't find this to be as bloody as some have made out. Like I mentioned, the english translation for the film I watched was broken and I really had to try and figure a few things out for myself. This was a well filmed movie. The costuming and sets were great. I really did enjoy it and I hope to find a better version so that I might be able to enjoy it all the more. I would suggest this if you like period thrillers.