Meeting his debtor in a cafe called "Parliament", Moro learns that Spartak also owes money to a lot of other people.

Almost desperate, Moro confronts the drug dealers, sees Spartak go into a state of hysteria, and turns Artur's people against him.

The film ends as Moro is stabbed by one of Artur's thugs in a snowy street as he walks home to Dina.

Nugamov cast close friend Viktor Tsoi as the protagonist Moro, a character they had both been developing over their studies at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography in Moscow.

[2][3] On directing The Needle, Nugamov said: "I tried to free the film (scenes, dialogues, plot) as much as possible from any symbolism, to make it like an empty vessel that each viewer could fill with their own interpretation.

[citation needed] Alongside Assa in 1987, The Needle, released in the age of Perestroika, helped to bring Viktor Tsoi and Kino into mainstream popularity across the USSR, as well as attracting international attention.

The band would go on to play before a crowd of 70,000 at a concert in Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium on 24 June 1990, shortly before Tsoi was killed in a car accident in Latvia.

In 2017, an avenue dedicated to the film was opened and metal plaques with lyrics from Tsoi's songs were laid on a stone-tiled walkway.

Of this change, Nugmanov commented: [When making the original film] I set a condition for the studio: I will be free to handle the script, because non-professional actors will not be able to play it as written.