Still, you will frequently enough hear the equivalent of "How are you doing?" -- "Fine, and you?" in Russia. What you see in this film has more to do with stereotypes about Russian culture (interestingly, they have a lot of stereotypes about their own culture); plus, friendship culture is a bit different in Russia than in America, as far as my experience goes.

I don't know of any culture that doesn't have these verbal handshake rituals, and I'd be very surprised to learn that they're not universal. The more interesting question is this: are they universally ambiguous in the way they are in present-day America? I'v heard (form someone with first-hand experience) that they are even more conventionalized in some African cultures so that there is absolutely no ambiguity: you have a standardized question "how do you do?" that is definitely not a question about your condition, and a standardized answer. I don't know how they actually ask about the other person's well-being in contrast, though.