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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Night Watch?

21:59 / 24.08.05

Saw a clip for this flick in the cinema tonight.First time I've heard of it but it looks pretty good.
Anyone know anything about it?
Tracked down trailer here -
Night watch Trailer

07:49 / 25.08.05

Oh yes, that´s a fun movie. I saw it a couple of months ago. The russian title is Nochnoi Dozor. It´s the first part of a trilogy.

Good (shape-changers) vs evil (witches, vampires). Both sides have had a truce for centuries, but now there´s a prophecy, that finally becomes reality. And there´s a boy, who´ll tip the scale - the side he chooses, is supposed to win the war.

The main actor is really fun, typical antihero, who reminded me of John Difool from the Incal comics.

Although the movie is quite dark at times (and almost everything happens at night), there´s a lot of tongue in cheek humor and the actors were obviously really having fun, which is good for the movie.

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:52 / 25.08.05

Good (shape-changers) vs evil (witches, vampires). Both sides have had a truce for centuries, but now there´s a prophecy, that finally becomes reality. And there´s a boy, who´ll tip the scale - the side he chooses, is supposed to win the war.

Hang on a sec - isn't that the plot of Underworld?

Jack The Bodiless

10:22 / 25.08.05

Yeah, and half the White Wolf RPG games, and a myriad of vampire/werewolf/changeling trash fiction over the last twenty years (most of which seems to feature half-vampire/half-human antiheroes with implausibly cyberpunk names a la Blade and Sonya Blue), plus a healthy dose of the Matrix. Doesn't mean it won't be cool. Being Russian is definitely in its favour...

ONLY NICE THINGS

13:02 / 25.08.05

Yeah, and half the White Wolf RPG games, and a myriad of vampire/werewolf/changeling trash fiction over the last twenty years (most of which seems to feature half-vampire/half-human antiheroes with implausibly cyberpunk names a la Blade and Sonya Blue), plus a healthy dose of the Matrix. Doesn't mean it won't be cool.

Given your examples...

A beautiful tunnel of ghosts

13:58 / 25.08.05

Of White Wolf and Underworld

14:33 / 25.08.05

Motherfucking ARRRGH! That start of that trailer made me jump! Warn me next time, yeah?

14:42 / 25.08.05

Cool is not the right word for this movie. It´s fun. It´s not pseudo-serious like Matrix or Underworld.

The Matrix2 carchase for example was trying to be serious and important and showing off all those effects. The car scene in Nochnoi Dozor is silly and fun. The bad guy, for no reason at all, is suddenly standing in the middle of the street. He does some magic hand waving and the big car just does a looping over him and then returns to driving real fast. No reason for him doung this, it´s just for the hell of it.

Tryphena Absent

23:21 / 25.08.05

Is it subtitled? It looks great but if it's a dubbed Russian film it's going to lose something.

07:03 / 26.08.05

Yes, I saw it in russian with subtitles.

Mysterious Transfer Student

11:40 / 01.09.05

Having seen Night Watch this week at a sold-out screening in the West End, courtesy of the lovely Frightfest festival, I can say it's well worth a punt. The comments upthread about the RPG/Underworld/shonky cyberpoonk elements aren't really grounds for dismissal, as the story quickly draws you into a behind-the-cosmic-scenes Manichaean adventure that has more in common with the likes of His Dark Materials than any leather overcoat/handguns nonsense. Personally I found the outdated elements endearing, such as the look of the videogame-playing lead bad guy mentioned by Mistoffelees, which my girlfriend summarized as "Rutger Hauer playing Jim Jarmusch".

The two hours of this movie flit by - if anything the film's major weakness is that it really feels like the first part of a trilogy, with all the sense of incompleteness that implies. The characters, particularly the fuck-up hero, are memorable and look like they could carry the weight of three films. As for the subtitling, it's been done in a wonderfully creative manner, drifting about the screen behind and in front of the action - enabling effects such as scarlet text which dissolves like blood in water, when dialogue is spoken by a vampire character. Since the localisation has obviously been done with some care, it should be retained when we get a national release in... (checks IMDB)... October.

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

15:24 / 01.09.05

Wasn't it supposed to be released back in JUly? I seem to recall hearing that.

09:41 / 04.09.05

I think this film is only counterstrike to Hollywood and it's special effects and action throughout the whole film.

All Acting Regiment

09:45 / 04.09.05

"Only counterstrike"?

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

09:44 / 05.09.05

Anyone any idea when this likely to get a national relaease? I've been dieing to see it for a while now.

Mysterious Transfer Student

11:43 / 05.09.05

Nifty official site says October 7, Reidcourchie.

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

13:17 / 05.09.05

I've been to the official site a few times, that must be a new addition, cheers for that.

23:54 / 18.09.05

Looking forward to this, it looks great. I think I'll have to get the book(s) after seeing the first part though, (if it's as good as the trailer is hinting at.) because the suspense will be too annoying.

Motherfucking ARRRGH! That start of that trailer made me jump! Warn me next time, yeah?

Yeah, I shit my brother up so bad with that bit that I felt bad afterwoods.

01:30 / 11.10.05

I just checked for this film on the odeon website and it's not even listed as being out! I've been looking forward to seeing it for over a month now, does anyone know what's going on with it?

12:26 / 11.10.05

It's out now in London...

08:49 / 12.10.05

Yeah I saw it last night, I had to go to a different cinema though because Odeon wasn't even showing it, which I thought was pretty surprising.

I thought it was a great film. From seeing the trailer I thought that the main character might've been shown as this super cool guy, out there stopping the Vampires and Witches with as much style added as possible, but it was brilliant to see that he wasn't any of that, and was more of a normal person (about as normal as he could be anyway.) trying his best to deal with the situation he was faced with.

I liked the setting it had, with both sides forced into an uneasy truce that looked more and more unstable as the film progressed. It left me wondering just how out of hand things were going to get by the time the end arrived. I was happy that it also had some good comedy moments in it that appeared to help a lot in giving the film it's own sense of character.

Agreed, it was the first part of a trilogy so it didn't have the completeness that I'd have liked, but apart from that I liked it a lot, and am looking forward to the next part.

14:00 / 13.10.05

Saw this last night and am profoundly disapointed by it. Cracking start, the scene with the vampires and the mirrors is really well done and a great reversal of the myths. But then nothing happens for an hour and a half, it just meanders on and on, the storyline diverges into two equally blah-blah plotlines. Neither of which really grabbed my attention.

Points for trying, but didn't live up to it's potential.

P. Horus Rhacoid

16:41 / 13.10.05

Erm. SPOILERS!

I enjoyed this, but to a certain extent I agree with Evil Scientist. I think the movie suffers a lot from being the first part of a trilogy, and from having to introduce a ton of characters. It also underutilizes a lot of secondary characters, particularly Olga. She has a really intriguing backstory– she starts the movie as a stuffed owl, for fucksake- but you never get any real handle on her character. The same goes for Bear and Tigercub- cool ideas, but ultimately they're fairly sketchy characters.

I also think too much focus was put on the Vortex, to the detriment of the Anton-Yegor plotline, and that subplot (Vortex, I mean) ended with a relative fizzle- 'Oh, well, I guess we aren't all going to die. Cool.' I assume that the point was that the Light focused too much on big events, thus letting Yegor the Super Important Balance-Tipping Kid under their radar, but I never felt any real, immediate sense of danger from the vortex, which made the whole subplot a bit of a letdown, despite the amount of time spent on it. Going along with that, I wish they'd been able to establish Anton's relationship with Yegor a bit more. I do wonder how much of this has to do with me being American, and this film being Russian- maybe I'm just not used to the narrative techniques it used, I don't know.

Also- what the hell was going on in the last scene with all the knights? I assume it was Anton having a vision, but it made the scene really confusing. Going along with that, why did he try to attack Yegor?

Anyhow, as a set-up to movies to come it did its job well- the world's intriguing as are the characters (I just wish we'd learned more about some of them here). The relationship between the Light and the Dark and the ambiguity of both have a lot of potential. Anton's a great protagonist, and the villain is suitably villainous, and the supporting characters are at least potentially interesting. I wish it had set things up in a slightly more exciting way, though.

And yeah, the scene with the mirrors was great. As were the subtitles.

Mysterious Transfer Student

07:15 / 15.10.05

See, I enjoyed the aspect of widely-ignored apocalypse; it appealed to the same part of me that loves Grant Morrison and Joss Whedon's stuff. The scenario of earth-shattering events that only a few strange and marginal people can perceive, let alone do anything about - it's pure Candlemaker/Hellmouth territory. Not that I suspect the director of biting either writer's material - I just really enjoy that approach to fantasy fiction.

That wasn't very well articulated, was it? I need to see this movie again.

uncle retrospective

12:34 / 15.10.05

So despite the Dracula ep of Buffy being in the film you don't think Joss was an infulence?

Anyway, I really liked it, it's just not like the usual crap Vampires in film have become and I loved the way the subtitles were handled.
Looking forward to the next one.

Mysterious Transfer Student

06:36 / 16.10.05

So despite the Dracula ep of Buffy being in the film you don't think Joss was an infulence?

Totally slipped my mind, that did. Told you I needed to see it again.

But you're right: we need more of this! Bring us the Day Watch, Bekmambetov-san!

admiral sausage

19:03 / 26.10.05

Spoliers…..

Errrr after several days of convincing Mrs admiral sausage that this was the best film ever, that we just HAD to see it, he enjoyed it and I thought it was a bit rubbish (sorry, I’m not just posting this to get a reaction out of the people who loved it.) and I really did want to see this. Haven’t been this disappointed since Gangs Of New York.

Maybe I just didn’t get it but first of all (for me anyway) there was far too many unnecessary special effects, they tried to cram in as many jump cuts, bullet time and CGI in where it wasn’t necessary, that is kind of my main gripe, as well as thinking that the plot was very unoriginal.
I do have a few questions about the plot, some I suppose will be fleshed out in the sequels.

- After Anton is messed up by the hairdressing vampire and he is healed by the head honcho, he is told that he’s not cut out for this kind of thing. So why, when he is looking after Yegor is he whisked away and replaced with 2 obviously more experienced night watch people to go on this “save the world” type mission ?

- The guy whose mum died (working in the power station) , wasn’t he the fella from the beginning of the film on the bridge with a bundle of sticks, who the light and dark guys were whispering too ? AND what happened when the van driving bloke heard that this fells mum was dead didn’t he start driving to the power station with Anton ? or did I just get that bit wrong ?

- Why did Anton try to kill Yegor ? If the Dark leader some how set this up, how? I did like his computer game thing. Is that how he set it up?

- Would the vortex occur if anyone was cursed, does it have to be a virgin whose cursed, has the person who makes the curse got to be some super powerful other.

Would the film be much better if the word “other “was replaced with “otter” ?

20:47 / 24.04.06

Bump, with intent to cause disturbance.

This has just come out on DVD over here in the UK, and I had this compulsion to seek it out and buy it.

It is, as Mistofolees said, 'fun'. It's not 'cool' or even that serious, but it is 'fun' even considering the strangeness quotient of some of the content.

Admiral Sausage, I'd like to take a run at answering two of your questions, if I may;

I) Anton tried to kill Yegor, in my humble opinion, because of the seed of guilt that had grown in him ever since he had casually agreed with the Witch at the start to take on the guilt of causing a miscarriage; this guilt had stayed with him for twelve years, bearing down on him and manifesting the urge to kill the son of his wife's lover even after the miscarriage was averted.

It's my belief that the desire to kill Yegor stayed, implanted (self- or otherwise), within him in some form from his first meeting when he found out that he was an 'Other', and that the Main Bad Guy with the Green Lighter and strange cigarettes merely aided the relatively cathartic process, but stopped him before it could manifest itself totally in action.

Anton is on the side of 'Good', but has been only since his first foray into the world of the 'Other', which was intended to commit an 'Evil' act. All sorts of checks and balances suddenly come crashing down in the face of enemies who believe his life was forfeit for disturbing the balance, and also just post-apocalypse where the Cursed Person had damned herself, which lifted the curse by her own acceptance...

I think it's all about some forms of catharsis and acceptance of fate, ultimately. Although I think I've used way to many single apostrophes to be healthy.

II) I think it was the act of cursing herself that made the 'virgin' an 'other', but it was her being an 'other' that made the curse so powerful. Which is a complete hash of circular theory, but - either she was an 'other' prior to cursing herself, which made the curse so powerful, or the emotional trauma of her actions re: her mother's illness awakened her other-ness and this caused her to curse herself. Sort of.

Also, on your last point, very much so - "It's her! She's the Otter!" would have been a good conclusion.

22:44 / 27.04.06

I finished the second novel today. It´s entertaining, but there´s not much happening. It´s not worrying though, since the first movie used only about 1/3 of the first novel.

Did anybody else read the novels, too?

Kiltartan Cross

07:12 / 28.04.06

Did anyone else read the novels, too?

Have you read them in English? According to Amazon the translation ain't out until June (I've had it on order since seeing the film), and as ya nye govoryoo that Rooski stuff then nichevo. Unless there's another translation...

I got the feeling from the film that it was ok, but that the book probably had a lot more in it, probably explained a lot more. I gather the books have a far greater supernatural element, and that the director of the film deliberately toned down the fantasy quite a bit.

(edit)
Ooops. Or German, even. My grasp of German is only slightly less tenuous than my grasp of Russian, so I guess I'll have to wait.

10:19 / 28.04.06

Yes, I read the German translations.

SPOILER (about the deviations books vs movie):

Jegor, the boy, is not chosen by Sebulon in the books (at least not in the first and second novel). At the end of the second novel, Jegor still has not chosen between dark or light.

And Anton Gorodezki did not go to the witch to kill his child, that was someone else. And Jegor is not his son, he does not have any children. But he will have a daughter with Swetlana, the woman with the curse vortex over her head; they´re a couple.

03:03 / 24.11.07

Why did Anton try to kill Yegor ? If the Dark leader some how set this up, how? I did like his computer game thing. Is that how he set it up?

Anton did not deliberately try to kill Yegor. He thought he was being attacked and acted on reflex, grabbing Yegor by mistake in the heat of battle. Anton tried to have the witch abort Yegor before he was born, but only because she told him that the child wasn't his and that it was the only way to get his wife back.