Humanoid Woman

With a screenplay based upon fellow Russian science-fiction writer Kir Bulychev’s 1975 novella Трудный Ребенок [The Problem Child], director Richard Viktorov produced this modest but standout futuristic tale. Featuring surreal and head-spinning moments — perhaps occasionally reminiscent of Gerry Anderson's Space: 1999 — while filmed in Gorky Studios and the Ukraine, Через тернии к звёздам [Through thorns to the Stars] aka To the Stars by Hard Ways was originally screened in two parts at cinemas throughout the Soviet Union in the early 1980s, and fashion model Elena Metyolkina — who plays the titular alien 'humanoid' — was awarded a “Silver Asteroid” at the 1982 Trieste International Science Fiction Film Festival for her captivating portrayal of Niya. Humanoid Woman (as it became known in the US) transpired to be drastically truncated — in a version that was hastily dubbed for American audiences by television producer/distributor Sandy Frank.

After discovering the drifting wreckage of the ‘Gaia’, a mysterious alien space craft, the scientific community of earth is intrigued with the first hand opportunity to study Niya (Metyolkina), a young female alien from the planet Dessa. Niya, a by-product of an advanced cloning technology, is athletically superior and aged “somewhere between 5 and 17 years” is kept under close scrutiny...

Discovered to also possess strong telekinetic powers, Niya’s mind is like that of a child, almost completely blanked from the incident that saw her heading towards earth. As she adapts to her human surroundings, Niya begins to remember more from her past, and soon receives a message — a distress call from home — and is compelled to return, stowing away on the earth starship, Astra, which takes her to Dessa, where she hopes to save her planet.

Featuring a shiny domestic robot named Hazel (looking altogether like it was crafted from various household items), an awkwardly gangly piece of kit pretty skilled at tennis and collects autographs, together with other bizarrely conceived aliens, it would be so easy to dismiss Viktorov’s film as second rate – particularly when compared with other, more mainstream, sci-fi fare; however Humanoid Woman (most notably in its original and longer version) is actually quite a thought-provoking, environmentally conscious and sensitive picture, extremely deserving of its minor cult following, most notably its many fans in Russia..