Mention gangster movies and you automatically get a picture in your head of people firing guns. Whether its the drive by shootings of Public Enemy or the bullet to the back of the head in Goodfellas, gangsters and guns go hand in hand. David Cronenberg's contribution to the gangster genre, Eastern Promises, certainly has its fair share of violence, not least in the memorable fight between a butt naked Nikolai Luzhin (Viggo Mortensen) and a pair of Chechen assassins in a bath house. It's a brutal scene in a film with more than a few brutal moments, including one which is guaranteed to put anyone off going to the barber's for a close shave. Cronenberg discussed the absence of guns in Eastern Promises: "We have no guns in this movie. There were no guns in the script. The choice of those curved knives we use in the steam bath was mine. They're not some kind of exotic Turkish knives, they're linoleum knives. I felt that these guys could walk around in the streets with these knives, and if they were ever caught, they could say 'we're linoleum cutters'."
