Night Watch

[Anonymous]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0403358/

This one's getting mixed reviews.  I'm downloading a copy now and ordering the DVD... will let you know what I think but it recently got a stateside release...

[Anonymous]

damn that sounds neat

[Anonymous]

And part of a trilogy too.  Some people are saying "What Underworld should have been", the trailer looked good.  Got to work out then head into town but I should have some opinion on it by midday (I know, just hold your breath )

[Anonymous]

Kind of like the Matrix meets Underworld meets the Exorcist.  Really stylized.

I'm looking forward to checking it out in the theater.

[Anonymous]

Phew.... just finished watching it.  I think it was about 2 and a half hours long.  It's a good film though.  The basis of the story is that hundreds of years ago, good and evil fought constantly for control (yadda yadda), but then they decided to give up the fight because they were equally strong and no winner was going to come out.

Anyway, switch to modern day Moscow a thousand years later and a major player is about to come to town, he might be good or evil, depending on what he chooses to do.  Think "Constantine" and you're not far off.  Anyways, the world now is littered with Others, Light and Dark varieties - they have to keep check on each other so the Light Others take the Night Watch and the Dark Others take the Day Watch, they license each other to kill, feed, etc.  I won't ruin the story so I'll leave it at that for now.

Well anyhow, it's a bloody good film to watch, the visuals are stunning in places.  The different Others are understated which makes them somewhat more believable - there are vampires (good and bad), shapeshifters, witches and warlocks... you get the picture.  Some of the cinematogrpahy in this film I've never seen in Western cinema, and it works really well instead of being arty and over-the-top.  The scene with the crows circling the tower block, and the shapeshifting owl are amongst the best.  

Because it's a Russian film it's subtitled, and it's obvious the person who did the subtitling doesn't have English as a first language so some of the dialogue looks a little out of place, but since I deal with Eastern Europeans a lot I didn't really notice it and generally knew what they were talking about.  The reliance of the film is on folklore and is a little bit localised, so if you were able to watch films like Ringu or Odishin then you won't have a problem getting to grips with this.

Catch a review here: http://filmcritic.com/misc/emporium.nsf/2a460f93626cd4678625624c007f2b46/fcb3f223241f73f588256ff60002fa99?OpenDocument

See the official site: http://www.foxsearchlight.com/nwnd

Buy it here: http://www.russiandvd.com/store/product.asp?sku=35108&genreid=&genresubid=

(Though I have seen it for $15.95 elsewhere)

[Anonymous]

In case anyone is interested, the trailer for Day Watch (part 2 of the trilogy) has been released - it comes out in Russia 2006.  The quality is crap and I've temporarily mirrored it here: http://www.xtcg.co.uk/nohnojdozor2_teaser.avi

[Anonymous]

Huh.  It doesn't look quite as cool or epic as the first one.  In fact, it kind of has an... early 90's horror movie look to it.  Different director?

(And if they're sticking with the Night Watch/Day Watch thing, what will the third one be?  Afternoon Watch?  Morning Watch?  Next Day Watch?)

[Anonymous]

Same director, it's a teaser trailer though so I don't think they did much with it, some of it was from the first film.  Third one is "Dusk Watch"

[Anonymous]

hmm.... im gonna have to check into this one. i saw a trailer for it in theathers and thot it was going to be a theatricale release, then i didnt hear anything about it since. yeah definitely gonna have to look that one up.

[Anonymous]

It's through Fox Searchlight so it's unlikely it will make it to the mainstream unless it makes loads of cash and gets remade into a crappy hack of the original

[Anonymous]

I just finished watching it... it was cool.  Kind of weird, and a little vague in parts, but had an interesting visual style.  Looking forward to part 2, as the movie did end on a bit of a cliffhanger.

(And WTF was up with the life imitating video game thing?  That was just dumb.)

[Anonymous]

Yeah I was hoping that was a real game but then it all went shit :p