The film was about Sasha Guriev (Konstantin Khabensky), a successful and charming journalist who suddenly realizes that he has found compromising evidence on his politician friend.

[4][5][6] His next directorial work was the 2005 screen version of Boris Akunin's detective novel The State Counsellor.

Oleg Menshikov, Nikita Mikhalkov and Konstantin Khabensky were the lead actors of the picture.

In 2006 he directed The Sword Bearer which starred Artyom Tkachenko and Chulpan Khamatova.

In 2016 it was reported that Yankovsky has been cured from stage III cancer, after undergoing chemotherapy seven times.