A Russian starship finds an abandoned and derelict alien space station drifting near Earth containing the decaying bodies of artificial humanoid beings. The only surviving inhabitant is the beauteous Niya (Yelena Metyolkina), who seeks the help of the earthlings to restore her severely polluted home planet of Dessa to its natural splendour. Divinely campy, with its abundance of space-age leisure-wear outfits, cosmic mercenaries and bionic women (not to mention a midget capitalist who is responsible for Dessa's desecration), Richard Viktorov's teen-targeted space adventure is also visually ravishing and, in its own unique way, deeply affecting. Released in a shortened and dubbed version in the US under the title Humanoid Woman (and subjected to the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment in that form), To the Stars by Hard Ways was carefully restored to its original version in 2001 by Viktorov's son Nikolai, who had previously acted in his dad's kiddie sci-fi opus Moscow-Cassiopeia.