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A Russian army unit is ambushed by Muslim rebels in the Caucasus. During the attack, two soldiers (Oleg Menshikov and Sergei Bodrov Jr), one a cynical veteran, the other an innocent recruit, are captured and taken to a remote village. While Abdul the village elder plans to use them in a prisoner exchange for his own son, the duo start to develop an unlikely bond with their captors. Based on Tolstoy's 150-year-old short story, Bodrov's film is a low-key, slow-moving tale, a film that expertly and vividly depicts the clash between two different cultures. Subtitled and restricted to small cinemas and arthouse slots, Prisoner Of The Mountains stands out as a visually striking film, one that's suffused with a great deal of compassion and humanity for its characters. The cumulative impact of its gritty newsreel realism is truly devastating, compounded by the fact that this is a heartfelt homegrown tale. Needless to say, if you only see one Chechen hostage drama this year, make it this one.
Ex-Bethesda dev turned indie says "good things often happen by accident," like that time Skyrim players convinced themselves the RPG's foxes were leading them to treasure
Palworld dev says the studio went dark for months because "the team was getting burnt out from all the social media stuff, I was getting burnt out, our CEO was under attack in Japan"
Metaphor: ReFantazio had to dial back an early battle system inspired by a notoriously brutal 2003 JRPG, because 20 years later, players found it "irrational" and "just not fun"
