[1] The film is notable for its rich, sometimes baroque style, its sumptuous recreation of episodes from the final year of Imperial Russia and the psychological portraits of Grigori Rasputin and the Imperial family.

The storyline follows the final months of 1916 up to the murder of Rasputin; some events have been telescoped into this time though they actually happened earlier, during World War I. Rasputin's effect on people around him is shown as almost hypnotic, and the film avoids taking a moral stance towards him—breaking not only with Soviet history but also with how he was regarded by people near the court at the time, some of whom regarded him as a debilitating figure who disgraced the monarchy and hampered the war effort, leading to the mounting defeats of the Imperial Russian Army.

Released in Western Europe, Czechoslovakia,[3][4] Hungary,[5] Poland[6][7] in 1982, it was hailed as one of the most original Soviet films of the 1970s.

The versions released in the 1980s, and later on DVD, differ somewhat in length and the final voice-over newsreel shots of the 1917 revolution may have been added in to appease authorities.

[8] The original mid-1970s cut does not seem to have survived, and it is unclear how much was rewritten or possibly reshot after 1975.