Like the first part of the movie "Boyarsky Zagovor" (Conspiracy of the Boyars)is indeed a film about Stalin (who was a great admirer of Ivan the IV.) and the (seem-to-be)mechanics of power itself. The ideology, which is acted out (or reflected?!) stays much the same: one people/one leader is the ideal and necessary state of the (russian) nation, enabling it to take up with the other nations ("the Germans")The terror on the boyars and the elimination of some of them reflects Stalin's paranoiac action on comrades, subaltern party-members with the help of the "oprichniki" (here: Beriya and consorts). For instance, once in the movie, Ivan makes 'one of his best friends' the metropolit of Moscow, but in the same sequence is persuaded by the oprichniki's leader to kill his relevant to make him scared of Ivan's power. Because of this illustration of paranoiac stalinist mechanism, I can't agree on the popular notion, that the second movie is not as good as the first. One more reason: the most startling child actor ever: Erik Pyryev as the young tsar, ordering the chief boyar to be lashed.
