Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

thinker1691 Not often does a European or foreign film captures your attention as you sit to watch it. Here is one which will do just that. The Black and White movie later transferred to the big screen by Vladislav Todorov was superbly directed by director Javor Gardev. The gut wrenching story develops in an isolated dank, dark, brutal, Bulgarian Prison where our hero " Zift " (Zahary Baharov) otherwise known as 'The Moth' has just been granted early Parole. The movie depicts his early years, which includes his school, girlfriend, Ada (Tanya Ilieva) and a short-lived life of crime. Falsley imprisoned for his part in a murder-robbery gone bad, he insists he is innocent. Just when the audience begins to believe Moth only wants to leave the country and journey to the tropics, they are introduced to 'Slug' (Vladimir Penev) a brutal, sadistic partner who plans' on trailing Moth in a desperate search for a mysterious diamond said to have been stolen during the murder/robbery. The stark, bloody, black and white images, along with the director's ability to scatter mayhem and death through the dark rainy streets of Bulgaria offers a realistic movie which is direct, honest and as for this reviewer, a magnificent Classic of the first magnitude. Superior acting. ****

n1h1l1s7 In fact, a sociological research can be done about Bulgaria along those pages here. Some people say "it is the worst movie ever" and give it 1 star, some say it is "the best Bulgarian movie" and give it 8-10 stars. Well, the truth is somewhere in between. (I hate that "this movie is horrible" people say "too much profanity"... what? This movie is FAR LESS profane than ANY meeting in Bulgaria, where men are present...)-The acting... is bad. Or, there is not any. Only Moth is kinda okay, the rest is in the mediocre-horrible range (Ada being the bottom).-Characters... are horrible. Firstly, NOBODY swears... Undertakers, drunkards, military people, prisoners... WHAT? I don't know if non-balkan guys know how is it here, but HELL, even most intelligent of our guys swear like hell... when you listen to angry security guard for example, you can laugh your ass from the swears you will hear... In this movie- "f!ck, sh!t". Hell, Americans swear that way, bulgarians... DON'T. Besides, all characters speak in PERFECT Bulgarian, which makes them totally frigid and unrealistic (imagine a movie about a ghetto, where all black guys talk like Barrack Obama). -The storyline- is utterly messed at the end. The motives of some major characters remain unclear when the lights are up. -The Balkan humor- is missing and that is just insane. All we have to offer IS THAT, not make some high-budget movie rip-offs- because they won't work. -The dialogue- is most of the time bad. So is the narrator text- yeah, it is from a book... SO WHAT? There are bad books too- and this one is one of them. -The scene when they run at the women public bath and there are numerous naked women- is POINTLESS. I don't hold anything against nudity, but I HATE pointless nudity. Yeah, with so much "bads", someone will ask where are the "goods". Well, there are some. The movie is nicely shot, from my point of view- this is the big +. There were some nice moments too. But that's about it. Yes, the dialogue, story, acting weren't insanely bad, they weren't Epic/Disaster movie bad, they just weren't any good. I would give that movie 3 or 4 for the effort- it is not so bad to deserve 1, but it ain't deserving 8-10 too... not by a long shot.

video1212 As a SWF I was literally taken into watching this movie by a friend and I truly regret every minute of it. Later, browsing through Bulgarian blogs I stumbled upon something I think I should translate to every non-Bulgarian native viewer to see. Since I hate plagiarism, I'll post it:HOW TO STEAL ZIFTFirst: We steal the plot from the movie "Crank" with Jason Statham (2006)!Second: We steal style from the soundtrack of Kill BillThird: We steal a dozen of a military jokes !Fourth: We steal Felini's characters!Fifth: We steal Kusturitsa's background!Sixth: We steal the Phillip Marlowe's monologues, created decades earlier from the great writer Raymond Chandler!Seventh: We steal episodes from about at least 10-12 worldwide known movies, I don't have spare time enough to count the details!..... we mix all the things on black and white and voilà! We get worldwide applause and we amaze the already berserk Hollywood:((( At least this is the info taken from our "objective" press (excuse me)!What the heck are we left with? We can "steal" the same movie at some torrent site and to at least know that we're not in for it financially from all this SH*T! We steal, we watch, we swear and we delete the movie afterward. At least if we have the opinion of our own.The movie "Zift" is super pitiful... at my personal estimation! I don't give a sh*t about the competent jury, about mass advertisement and box office records in Bulgaria's standards! The mere tries for the movie to look like Metallica's video clip doesn't save the production at all. It is just that every minute of this movie you're guessing what exactly movie you were watching the same thing in and you try to guess the title :((( We have good level of actor's play, that's only positive thing, WITH THE EXCEPTION of Tanya Ilieva, who pushes lines with the power of expression of the green euglene in the non-fertile age. At least her tits are nice :))) Aaaa! And this "Nosferatu" from the Bulgarian Big Brother 4... Tzvetan! He shows as a mockery with mustache, obviously made out of plastic tape.What we have at the end of the long run: that the "Modern Bulgarian Cinema" is not Modern, is not Bulgarian and is not cinema at all :((( Not to mention that chewing asphalt in the years when chewing gum Ideal was becoming cult, is true perversion!I don't like this movie!

tsanev Black and white picture and trash talking do NOT make an Neo-Noir movie… We can guess the director's ideas or the story morals. We can guess, but what's delivered as an final product is unsuccessful attempt for modern cinematography. The story is full of flows – from the neat looking fascist time prison with snow white sweat shirts on all of the prisoners, trough kidnapping of the main character with an Russian limousine (impossible situation) garnished with bath full of women (let it be flesh…). A young girl that does not age with 20 years, a jeweler that likes to keep a black diamond… well you know where, while he exercise…. And please, radioactive poison detected in no time by lab in the beginning of the 60's….. I know, those inconsistent facts are only the side dish of the BIG idea, the big wisdom that we must get and embrace. I did not get neither the idea, neither the wisdom. All I got is foul language, trash picture and one more convincing example that the new Bulgarian Cinema is in the same "zift" as the movie title