Chasing Two Hares

Chasing Two Hares (1961) is a Ukrainian comedy you can watch online on iFILM, adapted from Mykhailo Starytskyi's beloved vaudeville by director Viktor Ivanov at the Kyiv Film Studio. Svyryd Holokhvosty runs a shabby barbershop in Kyiv but spends most of his time at the card table, where he reliably loses. Broke and out of options, he decides to fix things through marriage.

A rich but plain girl named Pronia Sirko is conveniently available. The problem: he also has his eye on a genuinely beautiful woman across town. Playing both at once, lying to each, and somehow maintaining the air of a man of principle — Oleg Borisov pulls this off with such straight-faced confidence that you end up rooting for the rogue. Margarita Krinitsyna and Nikolai Yakovchenko round out the cast.

The film has been quoted in Ukraine for decades, the kind of comedy that stops being a movie and becomes shared cultural shorthand. Stream Chasing Two Hares online on iFILM.