 Not since Stalin commissioned legendary filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein to produce IVAN THE TERRIBLE, has any film attempted to capture the power, the terror, the scope of the tumultuous life of Russia s Tsar Ivan IV. The brutality of Ivan, the Terrible, knows no bounds. But brutality alone is not enough to control disparate factions in Russia vying for power at any cost. Only when he marries Caucasian princess Maria does his hold on the state become absolute and the country become united.