Хитровка. Знак четырёх (aka In The Moscow Slums) (2023)

Set in 1902 Moscow, the celebrated Russian director and actor Konstantin Stanislavsky (Konstantin Kryukov) is having problems getting his character believable while acting in Gorky's THE LOWER DEPTHS. To this end, he engages the renowned journalist Vladimir Gilyarovsky (Mikhail Porechenkov) to take him to the slum district of Khitrovka so he can experience poverty first hand. But when the two of them discover a murder victim (Ayub Tsingiev), they decide to investigate his murder themselves. Loosely based on THE SIGN OF THE FOUR by Arthur Conan Doyle and directed by Karen Shakhnazarov (ASSASSINATION OF THE TSAR). A slick mystery that takes two real historical persons and throws them in the middle of a fictional Agatha Christie type period murder mystery. Moving Conan Doyle's story from Victorian London to pre revolutionary Russia works surprisingly well. As a whodunit fan, I found I found the eventual resolution disappointing but the journey was quite fun. With Anfisa Chernykh, Yevgeny Stychkin and Alexey Vertkov.