Like Fritz Lang, David Fincher or Bong Joon Ho before him, talented debut filmmaker Lado Kvataniya uses the concept of police detective vs serial killer for an excitingly stylised, macabre and haunting narrative, that ultimately revolves around the identity of an era: in this case, the late 1980s Soviet Union. With Glasnost and the end of communist rule, the West also learned of the (unsurprising) fact that there were serial killers in Russia too – the most notorious case probably that of Andrei Chikatilo, nicknamed the Rostov Ripper, or the Russian Hannibal Lecter. Based on these and many other sources, Kvataniya and screenwriter Olga Gorodetskaya constructed an immersive psychological puzzle, jumping back and forth in time, to reveal ever new-possible motives for the actions of all the protagonists. It all starts in 1990, when Detective Issa Davydov is celebrating his promotion and receives a call, reporting a crime that looks precisely like the ones of the serial killer that he famously captured some years before ...
内容描述一名精神病男子化装成圣诞老人在公路上洗劫，并以残酷的手法杀死了车主夫妇。他们的小孩侥幸逃生，但多年以后仍然受到此一暴力事件的惊吓。 「圣诞老人是凶手」这种角色设计，对儿童而言根本无法接受，成年人亦会对本片的血腥暴力场面感到不忍卒睹，但其诡异的叙事风格仍然具有特色。 该片在当年首映时曾引起美国家长的抗议，不过因此反而使它变成卖座片，甚至接连拍摄了几部续集。
2023年，期待已久的电影《东京复仇队》续集将上映。以“血之万圣节篇”为题材的两部作品，前篇《东京复仇队2血之万圣节篇-命运-》于黄金周上映，后篇《东京复仇队2血之万圣节篇》-决战-》将在夏天披露。
