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Fri 10 Oct 2007Eastern PromisesNEVER a slouch when it comes to startling his audience, David Cronenberg goes for the jugular at the outset of his edgy new thriller. A few minutes into Eastern Promises, a Russian gangster is seated in a barber's chair when he gets a cut he doesn't expect. His throat is slit - in close-up.Another death follows, when a pregnant 14-year-old eastern European prostitute dies in a north London hospital, and a birth, when her baby is delivered and survives.