Everyone is shooting in the dark. No one knows who is friend or foe. It’s Fargo meets Pulp Fiction —but with a distinctly post-Soviet hangover. Here’s the catch. Zhmurki is not a "slow, poetic" Russian film. It’s loud, fast, and packed with 90s criminal slang (fenya) that even native speakers sometimes struggle to parse.

If you’ve never heard of Zhmurki (Жмурки), you aren’t alone. But if you have heard of it, you probably already have a strong opinion. Released in 2005 and directed by Aleksei Balabanov—the visionary behind the cult classic Brother — Zhmurki is a film that defies easy categorization.

Yes.