The Secret Agent's Destiny
(Судьба Резидента / Sudba Rezidenta)
USSR 1970
Directed by Veniamin Dorman
Restored DVDRip
IMDB link
Click here for before / after reel
1970 USSR box office leader, 28.7 million viewers
In Russian (occasionally in translation over German and French) with English subtitles
Part 1: Cards on the Table (79 minutes, 1.32GB)
Part 2: Western Trail (69 minutes, 1.26GB)
The KGB has captured Western spy Mikhail Tulyev (Georgiy Zhzhonov) and strives to utilize him in their counterintelligence tactics against the West. In the meantime, a bright but naive young Soviet engineer, Vladimir Barkov (Andrei Vertogradov), is ensnared by Western intelligence agencies.
With its rose-colored depiction of Soviet society and deep Cold War paranoia,
The Secret Agent’s Destiny
will be enjoyed by cultural history aficionados as well as fans of realistic spy fiction.
The second installment in the Secret Agent series:
The Secret Agent’s Blunder
(1968),
The Secret Agent’s Destiny
(1970),
The Secret Agent’s Return
(1982), and
The End of Operation “Secret Agent”
(1986). Russian president Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent himself, has stated that his career as an intelligence officer was prompted in part by Zhzhonov’s performance in these films.
This version is the result of efforts to improve both the video and subtitles from the low-quality Ruscico DVD. Video has been exactingly cleaned up as follows:
- Cropped windowboxing (source DVD is overcropped on the sides, unfortunately)
- Stabilized gate weave
- Removed flickering
- Removed blue tint
- Corrected levels and restored crushed blacks
- Recovered details and reduced aliasing
- Cleaned noise and banding
- (See the before / after reel and bottommost screenshot below)
Subtitles have been edited line-by-line for readability and accuracy. There are two English subtitle tracks, identical save for format:
- Default track: lower resolution IDX (VobSub) format; compatible with many standalone media players
- Secondary track: high resolution SSA format; recommended if watching on a computer
Technical details:
- B&W, 25 fps, 692x376
- (Resolution unaltered from DVD except for removal of black windowboxing)
- (Displayed at 738x376 with 1.066 PAL pixel aspect ratio)
- 48 kHz, 192 Kbps stereo AC3 (unaltered DVD original)
- x264 in MKV
