Citizen X

The characters of Fetisov and Burakov were both real people who investigated the actual Chikatilo killings, yet their ranks and positions were changed in the movie. Historically, Major Mikhail Fetisov was sent from Moscow in order to investigate the killings (in the film he is already in Rostov as a Colonel heading the militia) while Victor Burakov was a civilian forensic expert (in the film he is a Police Lieutenant) assigned by Fetisov to head the investigation. There was no Central Committee comprised of Communist Party and KGB men above the two (this was a plot device created for the film to show Soviet bureaucratic methods) and the main reason why the case took so long was that the investigators interviewed over 150,000 people trying to narrow down who the killer could be. The mistaken release of Chikatilo, and the botched blood-semen test, was accurate as it occurred in the investigation.

The film spans twelve years, yet Lt. Viktor Burakov's children don't age.

The 1995 UK video release was cut by 37 secs by the BBFC to reduce stabbings during the murder scenes.

Featured in At the Movies: Roommates/Muriel's Wedding/Hideaway/The Good Old Boys/Citizen X (1995)