The film combines traits of a "buddy film" with "Eastern" look and setting. Nancy Condee writes that the choice of film location likens the Russian Civil War to U.S. frontier history: "the clean slate, a "terra nullius" at the imperial periphery, an unlimited moral expanse where socialism could be inscribed". The Chekists, shown at the beginning of the movie merely as former brothers in arms and friends, by the end of the film become a well-oiled organism supporting state sovereignty and governability. Likewise, the landowner's carriage, destroyed at the beginning of the film, gives way to a sleek and modern limousine as a symbol of the new state.