Very nicely done, a handful of interesting actors, a gutsy writer and director. It is a very complicated theme to touch and actually, you have to watch also the Special Features from the DVD in order to translate and appreciate the movie better.
It is already in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Promises
It is a Russian mafia story, with a mix of British to cool down this "nuclear" combustion. In a weird way there is also a love story between Anna (Naomi) and Nicolai (Viggo). For sure there is a lot of chemistry between those two, but is kind of forbidden love, or as the director says "They are like two ships that meet at night in the open sea but continue on their directions". Viggo does a very good Russian accent and a Russian guy. He says that he actually went to Russia to the small town from where his character was supposed to be, he learned from Russian people (or even criminals that don't admit to be criminals), he studied the tattoo language and brought all that into the movie. The tattoo is a very fine element in all this story. I knew that symbols and pictures people tattoo on their bodies always represent something, but in this case, tattoos are like passport. A funny one that Viggo mentions on the Special Features is the tattoos that he has on his ankles. In one foot it's written in Russian "Where are you going?" and on the other foot is written, again in Russian "What the fuck do you care?". I thought that is funny! And I thought my tattoo is "special" !!! What a kid I am :)
Another funny thing is that the word "zakone" that in Russian means "code", in my language means "vice", same spelling. My poor country, has had so many invaders that we don't know anymore to what language we step the toe :)
