<In 1978, after defeating many rivals, Mr. Korchnoi emerged as Mr. Karpov’s first official challenger for the world championship.

[...]

His wife, Bella, and their son, Igor, were still in the Soviet Union and had not been allowed to leave. Just months before the match against Mr. Karpov, Igor was conscripted into the Soviet Army, though he refused to serve and became a fugitive. He was eventually caught and imprisoned for more than two years. >

For me VK has 177 pages of games. So 'twould be roughly page 88, I think.

You will reach game number 2208, VK v LP Lucerne 1985

the USA misdeeds aren't in the same league as what occurred in the old USSR.>

I thought we were preventing the slaughter of Kosovo Albanians.

I thought we were preventing a Russian backed takeover of the entire Korean peninsula.

I thought we were [trying] to prevent a Russian takeover of all of Vietnam.

I thought we were removing Sadam Hussein from power, so he couldn't kill few more hundred thousand people.

Korchnoi vs Portisch, 1985.>

Hmm, I used that clever method, except I changed the url to 89, but I seem to have a different game 2208:

<2208. Korchnoi vs M Van der Linde 0-1 36 1985 NED E12 Queen's Indian>

in other words,

Korchnoi vs M Van der Linde, 1985

Same VK vs der Linde game as 2208.

Games from 1985 are not well dated, the PGNs have the year, but not the specific month/day.>

Also, 1985 to 2015 is thirty years as well, so it's not so odd.

BUT if one had approached Korchnoi in 1985, as he lost to Van Der Linde, and said, Did you know that your career is exactly half over...? What would be have said?>

Presumably he would have been thrilled, since he was about 55 and would likely have thought his career was much more than half over.

But I like to think he would have decked the questioner anyway.

The "blond guy" is the famous actor Andrey Myagkov who plays the fictional young grandmaster Sergey Khlebnikov. Myagkov maybe known in the west to some people as the actor who played Alyosha in the famous screen adaptation of "The Brothers Karamazov" (1969) that was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. But yes, Myagkov bears at least some visual resemblances of Karpov.

And you wouldn't bevieve it but the grumpy Korchnoi, the "archenemy and victim of the soviet system", played the trainer/second of Khlebnikov, so he appears quite a couple of times on the screen, can be seen in longer verbal exchanges.

Forgive my ignorance. :-) I know almost nothing about Soviet movies. I saw <Moscow Marathon> in college, very good.

<One question that comes up in the movie verbatim: "Is it possible to beat Fischer?" ;-)>

"... In 1972 I happened to do some acting, in a professional studio, for a film. This was a film about chess, and was called "Grossmeister" (Grandmaster). It told of a boy who became a grandmaster, and I played the role of his trainer. The very fact that a film about chess was made was a good thing. But the film itself turned out to be rather poor. It was not by accident that I was praised as being the best actor in the film. After all, I was playing in a professional company, among some really talented actors. It can happen that way; if the script is primitive, then even the actors have no means of expressing themselves. Nevertheless, the film was a success among chess players in the USSR and in Eastern Europe.

My last tournament in this tense year was again in Majorca, in November-December. There was something wrong with me, and I played extremely badly..." (page 84)

Thank you very much!!

I must add that the director of this (perhaps poor) movie had a brilliant idea; in fact he had made the excellent choice to pick up Mikhail Tal, Victor Korchnoi and even the previously "purged" Mark Taimanov as most popular and attractive (or interesting) representatives of the USSR chess professionals!...

Taimanov is the first person to congratulate the grandmaster in the opening scene. I don't recognize the person playing his opponent -- perhaps an actor? I suppose BUNA will know.