Eastern Promises

Continuity mistake: Anna walks up to Uncle Stepan holding a glass. She holds it with just her left hand in the wider shot, becoming two in the following, across the sentence "You have an uncle, Anna, who doesn't steal things from the dead." (00:06:00)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: Anna's uncle storms away refusing to translate the notebook of the dead girl. Anna sits down while her mom lays the table. In the close-up, she has all the utensils on the cloth (she missed the spoon in the wider shot) and the knife shifted more to her right. (00:06:35)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: Kiril comes out of the restaurant's back door, shouts at the dog and puts a hand on Nikolai's shoulder. He is talking across the two shots about his wife, in the second one his hand is not on his shoulder, it is on his back. (00:07:15)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: During her first visit to the Trans Siberian restaurant, Semyon is walking Anna across the room. She walks along a table, and the waiters and waitresses she passes by are inconsistent between shots (for instance she walks past a woman, but in the front view there's only a man behind her). (00:09:00)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: In the kitchen, Semyon is telling Anna how 'sad, very sad' is that he can't remember the woman having anything to do with the restaurant. A restaurant worker with a towel in hand walks past them, and has already opened a fridge and looking into it in Naomi Watts' close-up. (00:11:05)

Sammo

Eastern Promises mistake picture

Continuity mistake: During the banquet, Semyon motions to the waiter that offers to pour him champagne, to serve the guest to his right instead. The bottle was showing the label to the camera, but in the new shot it made a 180° turn, the label faces the waiter instead. Moreover, the waiter exits left but is walking right behind Semyon right a split second later in the reaction shot as Semyon looks at his son answer the phone. (00:15:10)

Sammo

Eastern Promises mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Viggo Mortensen is preparing to cut off the fingers of the cadaver. He flips his tie over the shoulder in the close-up, but in the following view of the room with Cassel patting his ass the tie is down his chest again. Goes back over the shoulder for more close-ups. (00:20:05)

Sammo

Eastern Promises mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Anna brings Semyon only copies of the original diary. The sheets are held together by handbag clips, which are closed in the close-ups, and open in the views from her angle. (00:23:00)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: On the doorstep of the restaurant during the rainy night, a very drunk Kiril is entangled with Nikolai. He has his right arm around Nikolai's shoulder, but somehow when Anna is walking past, he's fully turned around with his left arm against Viggo Mortensen's neck. (00:24:10)

Sammo

Eastern Promises mistake picture

Continuity mistake: The corpse is examined by the police; the corpse is shown once in its entirety. The knee is exposed. When Donald Sumpter inspects the body, he has to roll up the pants for the knee to be visible. (00:29:20)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: When Nikolai is sitting in the chair in the brothel, his jacket sleeve is pulled up to his elbow. When Kiril pulls Nikolai to his feet, the sleeve is pulled all the way down. (00:34:00)

Eastern Promises mistake picture

Continuity mistake: At papa's personal brothel, Kiril cups Nikolai's chin telling him how he wants to make sure he's "no queer." When Cassel is from the front, he's pointing his index finger under Nikolair's chin, while in the front views of Viggo Mortensen's face, Cassel gets awfully creative with the appraisal of his buddy's manliness, doing things like thumbing the cleft of his chin or using his ring finger instead. (00:34:45)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: After using the girl in the brothel, Nikolai puts money and an icon prayer card next to her. Between the 3 shots where you can see those items, the girl is not supposed to have moved, curled in her exhausted semi-fetal position, but you can see how the card, money and even the bracelet she is wearing all change position. (00:37:30)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: When Nikolai the driver goes to the burger joint to talk to Anna and her family, the latte in front of Anna's mother in the wider shots throughout the scene has the cocoa on top in a narrow circle. In the closer angles instead it's sprinkled more spread out, noticeably different. (00:47:40 - 00:49:30)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: Outside of the hospital, Anna finds Nikolai on her bike, waiting for her. When he sticks out his arm with the address, pay attention to the background; there's a couple walking down the pathway, and someone with a reflective vest coming from the left. Cut for a couple seconds to Naomi Watts thinking about the proposal, and the people there haven't advanced. Similarly, camera back on her, a woman is wheeled out of the door, but does not show up in the reverse shot on Mortensen, or rather, she does but only in the one that follows. (00:55:20)

Sammo

Factual error: Both the Arsenal and Chelsea supporters in the street scenes wear scarves and jerseys without any club logo or player name, the most generic possible, a little darker than Chelsea's real colors and with odd stripes for the Arsenal's scarves, and there's a whole crowd of them. Licensing issues or other reasons, it looks really phony. (00:57:00 - 00:58:10)

Sammo

Semyon: It's always good to have someone who I can trust, to do simple tasks. In this business, sometimes the biggest danger comes from the most stupid things.

More quotes from Eastern Promises

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