The Duelist

In nineteenth-century Saint Petersburg, a former army officer named Yakovlev returns from a long exile and supports himself by fighting other people's duels. Payment for standing in for men too fearful or too weak to face a pistol at dawn is permitted under the Russian code of honour, and Yakovlev is good at it. He meets the young Prince Tuchov and the prince's sister, Princess Martha, and finds himself moved by feelings he has long kept buried. At the same time, a past wrong drives him: Count Beklemishev once accused him of a crime he did not commit and had him sent away from the city.

The film is directed and written by Aleksei Mizgiryov, with Aleksander Rodnyansky and Sergey Melkumov producing. Pyotr Fyodorov plays Yakovlev, Vladimir Mashkov appears as Beklemishev, and the cast includes Franziska Petri, Martin Wuttke, Sergey Garmash and Yuri Kolokolnikov. Released in 2016 and running 110 minutes, it mixes action, adventure and drama.

Its reported budget was far larger than its worldwide box office return, and audiences are divided on it: on IMDb it holds 6.3 out of 10 from around 3,500 votes, and on TMDB 6.3 out of 10 from a much smaller number of votes. A critics' rating of 5.5 out of 10, based on 14 reviews, sits close to those audience scores.