Pre-Release NIGHT WATCH

Too bad the movie is horrible and makes no sense whatsoever.

The only thing that dampens my excitement from the trailer is the overly cliched fantasy plot. "Great One", "Light and Darkness", "Oooh, a great prophecy", blah blah blah.

However, the trailer does feel like a movie version of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere or American Gods.

I saw Night Watch awhile back at last year's Tribeca Film Fest, and I fell in love with it almost immediately. It's a beautifully shot, extremely dark fantasy epic. Performance-wise, only the lead, Anton (played by Konstantin Khabensky), really stands out. He does a great job as someone who has a hard time psychologically dealing with policing the light/dark forces.

Timur Bekmambetov is a visionary. His use of conventional effects and CGI really makes for a much more realistic experience, kind of like one of Guillermo del Toro's films. The film is set in Russia, and most locales are just old, decrepit buildings, which definitely helps create the film’s sense of dread. There's also one amazing CGI shot where a loose bolt falls from a plane and you watch it fall through the sky over Russia, fall onto the roof of a tenement, roll down the gutter and travel into someone's apartment. Also, on an aside, the subtitles are really cool. Basically, they are affected by the environment. For example, if there is a pool of blood on the bottom of the screen, the subtitles will be written in the blood. Or, if it is raining, a puddle splash will wash the subtitles away. It’s minor in the grand scheme of things, but it’s definitely a nice little touch.

Most people's gripes about the film will probably be that the film is basically a slow-paced setup for the rest of the trilogy and because of that there's not enough action. The film's job is to basically give you a background on Day and Night Watch, how/why they were formed, and who the "Great One" is. Then they spend a bit of time letting you get a feel for the Night/Day Watch universe by letting you watch Anton tackle a typical assignment. In the grand scheme of things, nothing of importance happens other than which side the "Great One" joins, so the battle does not begin until Day Watch .

It might feel cliched in the trailers, but it's very much about trying to show how seemingly ordinary humans deal with their grotesque problems. For example, one character is a vampire and must drink blood to gain his powers. However, drinking human blood is a no no, so he must go to a butcher and drink pig's blood, which he finds disgusting. By the end of the film, the Great One's motives for choosing sides also turns the film into a much darker, less cliched beast.

Overall, I was expecting it to be a movie where some smaller country tries to copy the American big boys, which to some extent Night Watch is. However, the plot, and especially the way it's handled, is much darker than what we're normally used to getting around here.

Does anyone know if this cut is the same one being released next year?

And any truth to the rumor that Fox Searchlight wants to make the third film in English?

Yes, Timur Bekmambetov is planning to film the third one in english.

My review from about a year and a half ago:

In the blockbuster Russian supernatural thriller Night Watch (not to be confused with the Ewan McGregor/Nick Nolte flick), the eternal struggle between the forces of Light and Darkness basically resulted in a truce during medieval days, when two opposing groups of armored warriors realized they were equally matched and instead drew up a treaty. Now, hundreds of years later, each side has their own secret organization dedicated to making sure the other doesn’t stray from the accord.


Anton is one of these members of the Night Watch, charged with keeping their adversaries in line until an ancient prophecy of a “chosen one” comes to fruition (while the Day Watch minds the white hats). Recruited twelve years ago when he maliciously hired a witch to snuff the unborn result of his wife’s adulterous relationship, Anton is now called upon to use his unique talents to rescue a young lad from a den of bloodsuckers. While tracking the boy on the subway, he also encounters a cursed female who requires follow-up investigation, as she’ll ultimately cause a “funnel” that serves as the catalyst for an impending apocalypse.


There’s all sorts of groovy weirdness in the dense flick (Anton’s female partner was formerly a stuffed owl, and his nemesis fashions a melee weapon out of his own spine), which otherwise tends to seem pretty convoluted. Adapted by Sergei Lukyanenko from his own novel (the first of a trilogy -- the others are also in production), the film is overloaded with information and yet clarifies very little, particularly concerning terminology and Anton’s comrades (although all the various ingredients do eventually converge through circuitous routes). Director Timur Bekmambetov must have graduated from the same school of slick, energetic filmmaking that unleashed the likes of Michael Bay -- I was surprised by the film’s production values, as I guess I ignorantly assumed only Hollywood chucked so much money at the screen. The stylish presentation and core components of the film are certainly compelling (even if the basic premise has already been touched upon many times before – I can’t be the only fan of G vs. E), but when Fox remakes the film and its sequels for American audiences, they might want to regulate coherence and reel some of the subplots closer to center.

They had already acquired the film by the time I saw it, and their logo appeared before the film started, so I assume that's the same cut they're going to use.

It seems that they're going to film it in English because Fox Searchlight is financing it, but how is that really plausible? Not all the actors speak English, and they will destroy the continuity if they cast American actors in place of Russian roles. I'm pretty sure that Dusk Watch is going to be an unmitigated disaster.

Pretty pictures. Frighteningly inept story-telling.

And that it is utterley imcomprehensible.

It's not incomprehensible. i don't even know why you would say that unless your print had no subs.

It had subs, but was the original Russian issue DVD. I will concede that the theatrical release may have a better translation. The version I saw certainly didn't have the animated subtitles.

Anybody read the books yet? This wiki article claims the film is a dishonest adaptation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_W...282004_film%29

I am curious as to your definition of the word "dishonest."

The wiki article doesn't claim it's "dishonest", you do.
Do you mean they had to change certain things in the book to make it work for the film? LIke they did with Lord of the Rings?
How is that dishonest?

I'm not saying that I'M dishonest, what I was trying to say was that the article was making comparisons between both film and novel in a rather negative way.

Take this for example:
So sorry for making an misunderstanding. "Dishonest" was just a poor word choice. (slinks away to bang his head against a wall)

Anyone seen "Night watch" in a movie theater (current american release)?
The sequel "Day Watch" was the top hit in Russian theaters just like the first installment, and next week it's coming out on DVD (unfortunately on DVD-PAL region 5 with no subs).

Ebert wasn't impressed:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

I wasn't, either. I don't know, the visual touches became distracting at times, but thats really neither here nor there. I found myself simply bored, leaving the Landmark with the damning praise of "interesting" after trying to deduce how so little could actually happen in a two hour fantasy film.

Perhaps I simply got too bogged down in the mess of exposition.

I liked the movie though I hate all these damned vampire and good vs evil flicks. Fortunately it's more than just a movie about good guys fighting vampires. It's a good picture of modern common people put in a abnormal situation. I also enjoyed Khabensky's acting.

I think the reason you found it to be imcomprehensible is because the movie has a lot of local pop culture references that aren't translated well on the Russian DVD subtitles, but the story isn't that complicated (if a bit messy). I watched it with a couple of friends who don't understand Russian and after they got used to the fact that they don't get some of the jokes, there were no problems whatsoever.

Day Watch was barely watchable, the only good things about it were that Armageddon sequence, and that it's ending ties back to the decision Anton made in the beginning of Night Watch. And by having him change that decision it seemingly nullified all the actions he took in the first movie, including joining the Night Watch. At least that's how it came across to me.

Nigh twat ch

Is there any other difference btwn the Russian release DVD and the U.S. Theatrical version besides the subtitles? If Day Watch truly sucks, you think they'll re-edit it for the U.S. release?

Personally, I was impressed with the flick. However, the friend I saw it with didn't like it. He found it confusing and after a while, boring--and he usually loves this type of stuff. Then again he didn't realize it was part one of a trilogy.

The thing is it's such a ballsy move to make a trilogy like this that part 2 had BETTER be good, because the whole reason we forgive the confusing aspects of part 1 is that it'll be fleshed out eventually. It's too much to ask that we wait until the third for it to all be resolved and make sense and make us happy that we stuck through it. Someone else once tried that...what's his name?--right: George Lucas.

Yeah, I caught DAY WATCH over the weekend. If people thought NIGHT WATCH was incoherent, they'll absolutely love the sequel, which makes even less sense. The whole war between good vs. evil that's set up in the first movie is basically ignored for what (as far as I can tell) is a murder mystery and... a search for magical chalk. There are a couple of interesting (if fairly nonsensical) sequences, but on the whole it's just a big murky snarl of supernaturalism.

I caught Night Watch last night and while the plot was really incoherent, I thought that they did a really good job establishing tone and perfecting the cinematography.

Is Day Watch just as long as Night Watch??

timur is a really good director, he just needs to write a good script.

Saw this last week.

My gripe with the film is that the prolouge sets up the criteria that the kid is so powerful, that once he chooses a side, he shifts the balance of power and the results are not only catastrophic, but unstoppable. Then at the end of the movie, after the kid chooses a side, the narrator says that there's still hope as long as people believe there is (or something like that). That's a pretty big plot hole.

And the subplot with the vortex lady detracted from the more interesting plot of finding and protecting the boy (whose identity, by the way, was predictable as far back as the opening scene in the movie). Also, I get what they were going for with the lady ***swipe for spoiler***having cursed herself***end spoiler***, but it was so very anticlimatic after the way they built it up that I was just put off by whatever interesting stuff could have come out of that whole storyline.

It's funny, cause they cut that down a lot from the original cut of the movie. The climax with the vortex lady was longer, and it made more sense.... but made the rest of the film drag a little more.

why is it the evil guys always get the cooler names? "gesser"? feh. "zavulon"? that's awesome.

or maybe i'm channeling zaphod. who knows.

WTF is going on here? Really liked it? Man, whats wrong with the world today? Okay, battle between good and evil (that is Light and Dark....oh it's sooo like Star Wars...). It is too blury, some actors looked like they was on the set for the first time... and the scenery - it was Moscow?! Once again, WTF. Some crows, spinning cars (sorry, ONE car - by the way what was it?), girl-vampire just walking up'n'down the road, blood in somekinda bottle... I can continue...
PS: I guess you understand that i really dont like this movie?

Hmm, I can see that. They should have just cut out the whole subplot then.

Well, I also really liked Constantine, if that's any explanation at all.