Elton John: Nikita

Despite some corny bits, gotta admit: it's one of Elton's greatest moments, videos and music of all. The idea alone stands out as a video masterpiece while dealing with the Cold War situation, the German separation and a love story in the foreground. Forget about the goof of John (and most likely Bernie Taupin, his writing partner) in using Nikita as a girl when it's actually a guy's name - or maybe there's some innuendo in between - but here in the clip Elton falls in love with a female soldier (played by Anya Major) who controls the gates at Berlin. His character is probably from the Capitalist site and he always tries a way to go to the other side...just to visit her, and she likes him too. Not sure if some of their meetings was a flight of imagination or actually happened (sequences where they're at the club or watching soccer) but it was all fun. And there's also a third part, this Nazi-looking officer who blocks Elton from entering the place and he's played by Andreas Wisniewski, very good actor best remembered as one of the villains in "Die Hard". Ken Russell's clip has everything: a nice love story, a rarely used background in terms of clips that presented Cold War era as it was with its frontier division, hard control, cultural clashes between Soviet side and U.S. side and etc; it was colorful, romantic, funny and it truly sells the song. And our leading lady surely matches the lyrics "with eyes that look like ice on fire". Anya was Nikita, truly lovely. The video might not be iconic as "Sacrifice" but it's one of Elton's most memorable in that decade. 9/10

I love this song so! The video is great, too--even though it doesn't make much sense. The Wikipedia article about the song says the video was filmed in the United Kingdom. Exactly where in the UK? The snow looks real, and snow is rare in the UK. T he biggest message written on the wall says, "KAHROLSUN FASIZM" which is actually Turkish for "Down with Fascism." Also, when the slides that Elton is looking at near the end of the video includes a close-up of the wall, there is actual German writing on it with political messages on it that would have been topical in mid-80s West Germany. Did they make a mock-up version of the Berlin Wall somewhere in Scotland or Northern England and even go to the trouble of writing topical West German political messages on it in German? It was the West Berlin side of the wall that was known for being covered in graffiti because the West German government tolerated, or even encouraged it, whereas the East Berlin side, which Nikita was on, was bare in real life (unlike in the video) because vandalizing the wall was strictly prohibited and the East Berliners were generally too terrified to defy the East German government.

I also read that the Bentley that Elton is riding in was his Bentley in real life, which he bought earlier that year. I have to know more about the making of the video! Where was it shot?

Remember this hit that Elton had back in 1985 called "Nikita" and the video was moving and eye catching for the fact that it involved a Soviet love story, and for it's time during the mid 80's when U.S. and Russia tensions were high! Anyway the video features John as a tourist from the capitalist side who falls in love with a female Soviet soldier(I must say she was a beauty!) Overall this music video and song were both colorful, touching, and interesting clearly one of Elton John's best from the 1980's decade.