Description

A fantasy adventure, Aziris Nuna is set in an alternate reality that sees the architecture of Moscow blended with Egyptian temples and pyramids. The film tells the story of a pair of brothers, the children of a museum employee. When the pair learns that there are some new Egyptian artifacts in the museum storage room, they sneak out in the middle of the night to take a look for themselves. But they get more than they bargained for… there’s a vengeful mummy come to life, and hidden within a large statue, they discover a dormant spaceship that whisks them into outer space, where they are accompanied on a series of adventures by an ancient sphinx.

Though little known on these shores, Sergei Lukianenko is nothing less than a sensation in his native Russia. In fact, you could fairly say that Lukianenko is the man largely responsible for the current boom in Russian genre film. How can you say that about a man who has never stepped behind the camera? Simple. Lukianenko is an enormously popular author of science fiction and fantasy, best known on these shores as the author of both the novels and screenplays that formed the basis of the hugely successful Night Watch and its sequel Day Watch. And the Lukianenko floodgates are just beginning to open. Already announced is a big budget adaptation of his virtual-reality fantasy Glubina.

With its blend of science fiction and action elements, Aziris Nuna aims for the adventure feel of films like The Black Hole and, more recently, Zathura. Helping greatly to that end is some stellar design and effects work - this is quite simply a beautiful film. Aziris Nuna shows another side to Lukianenko. While Night Watch indicated that he could blend horror and sci-fi elements like few others, Aziris Nuna is a big, glossy, popcorn adventure that shows Lukianenko can also do fluff with the best of them.

—Todd Brown

Website

http://www.azirisnuna.ru/

Credits

Director: Oleg Kompasov
Screenplay: Sergei Lukianenko, Yuli Burkin
Cast: Fillip Adeyev, Roman Kirimov, Vyacheslav Grishechkin, Semyon Furman, Alyona Ivchenko, Aleksandr Filippenko
Producers: Sergei Frolov
Distributor: KVid