Russia is getting in on the superhero game with the pretty badass-looking Guardians (original title: Zashchitniki). Directed by Sarik Andreasyan, the film is set in the Cold War-era USSR and features a group of people who have their DNA tinkered with to give them superpowers. When the Soviet Union falls the group goes into hiding until their services are required to fight a new modern threat.
During the Cold War, a secret organization named “Patriot” gathered a group of Soviet superheroes, altering and augmenting the DNA of four individuals, in order to defend the homeland from supernatural threats.
The group includes representatives of the different nationalities of the Soviet Union, which each one of them have long been hiding their true identity. In hard times, they settled down to business and gather to defend their homeland.
The team is made up of Ler, who can manipulate earth and stone; superhuman gymnast, martial artist and blade-wielding Khan; and Xenia, who can manipulate and take on properties of water. Then there’s Arsus, a werebear who can partially transform, changing any individual part of his body into that of a bear. Yeah, yeah, stop sniggering, we’re all thinking the same thing.
Guardians was filmed last summer in Moscow and the Crimean Peninsula. It will hit Russian cinemas on February 23rd 2017.
