Admiral
All actors and roles (10)
All team (26)
Short description
Admiral is a Russian historical drama set during the final years of the Russian Empire and the civil war that followed. It follows Alexander Kolchak, a naval officer and Arctic explorer who earns respect for his wartime service and rises to the rank of admiral. As revolution and civil war tear the country apart, he refuses to side with the Bolsheviks and instead leads White forces in Siberia. Alongside this conflict runs his love for Anna, the young wife of a fellow officer, a relationship that complicates his marriage and his public role.
Andrey Kravchuk directed the film, the first in the chronological list of his features, followed by Viking, Once In The Desert and Rise of the Empire. Vladimir Valutskiy and Zoya Kudrya wrote the screenplay, and Konstantin Khabenskiy plays Kolchak opposite Elizaveta Boyarskaya as Anna; Sergei Bezrukov, Anna Kovalchuk, Egor Beroev and Richard Bohringer appear in supporting roles.
Released in 2008, the film had a budget of about 20 million dollars and took roughly 38 million dollars worldwide, a strong return for a Russian production of its scale. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.6 from around 9,000 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 6.2 from a much smaller pool of 172 votes. The larger and somewhat warmer IMDb sample suggests a reasonably favorable response from viewers, though neither figure points to unanimous praise.
What's left behind the scenes
- Some scenes of the film were shot on the cruiser “Aurora” in St. Petersburg. Real sailors, conscript soldiers, about 200 people in total, participated in the battle scenes.
- Alexander Domogarov was initially considered for the role of Kolchak, and Vladislav Galkin for the role of Kappell.
- Around 300 costumes were sewn for the mass scenes – uniforms of the Russian, Japanese, German, Chinese, and Czech armies, as well as all insignia. Several uniforms were also sewn for Admiral Kolchak, both as a ground and naval officer, and corresponding insignia.
- The film was shot over 210 filming days, with work on the picture taking 4 years, the actual shooting 1.5 years, with a break of 2-3 months.
- Lisa Boyarskaya became Konstantin Khabensky’s screen partner even before work began on the sequel to “The Irony of Fate.” Only later was the actress confirmed for Timur Bekmambetov’s film.
- The film was released in a record-breaking run for that time – 1247 copies.
- Before "Admiral," Anna Kovalchuk already played Khabensky's wife in "Peak Hour," and Liza Boyarskaya had previously played Khabensky's lover in "The Irony of Fate 2."
- Some scenes were filmed in Estonia, in the Baltic Sea.
- Historical ships have not been preserved in Russia, so the filming crew had to construct a full-scale model of Kolchak's ship. For the naval battle scenes, stunt performers and pyrotechnicians devised a unique technology. The battle, which lasts 12 minutes on screen, took about a month to film.
- Special effects and computer technology specialists created over 24,000 computer-generated frames.
- Anna Timiryova, the main heroine, participated in the filming of S. Bondarchuk's "War and Peace" in an episodic role and served as an etiquette consultant in 1964.
- The scene at the Nizhneudinsk station was filmed at the Podmoskovnaya station on the Riga direction of the Moscow Railway. The arrival of the train at the Omsk station was filmed at the Riga station in Moscow.
- The main song for the film "Anna" was performed by Victoria Daineko. Composer Igor Matvienko wrote the music to the lyrics by Anna Timiryova about Kolchak. Valery Meladze also recorded a soundtrack for the film (the song "Despite").
- In the initial and final episodes of "Admiral", showing the filming of "War and Peace", the role of S. Bondarchuk was played by his son F. Bondarchuk.
- At the 59th minute of the film, when the admiral is delivering his speech, American flags are clearly visible in the background, and they are modern ones, i.e., with 50 stars. However, at that time, the American flag had 48 stars, and they were arranged differently.
- The film contains the following factual error: we are shown trains hauled by L-series locomotives, although they were built much later, from 1945 to 1955. The second factual error is that all the carriages shown in the film are equipped with SA-3 automatic couplers, but carriages did not begin to be equipped with automatic couplers until 1935.
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