THE WILD EAST (DIKI VOSTOK) Eastern European Cinema

Rach id Nougmanov’s ( The Needle) The Wild East is The Seventh Samurai shot in a radical eclectic style that mixes John Ford Westerns and Mad Max-like post-industrial and postmodern influences. This campy fable is about a group of midgets, the Solar Children, who have fled the chaos of the crumbling Soviet structures to the far off mountains of TianShan. Threatened by a band of nomadic bikers, they recruit the Man With No Name and a motley crew of guns for hire to help them destroy the evil gang. Eerily beautiful cinematography reflects both the ruin and the potential for renewal the crumbling Soviet legacy has left its survivors.