Night Watch (2004) Movie Info
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Movie Name | Night Watch (2004) |
| Original Title | Nochnoi Dozor |
| Director | Timur Bekmambetov |
| Screenplay Writer | Timur Bekmambetov, Laeta Kalogridis |
| Based on Novel by | Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko |
| Lead Actors | Konstantin Khabensky |
| Cast | Konstantin Khabensky, Vladimir Menshov, Valeriy Zolotukhin, Maria Poroshina |
| Genre | Fantasy, Horror, Action |
| Release Date | July 8, 2004 (Russia) |
| Duration | 1h 54m (114 minutes) |
| Budget | ~$4.2 million |
| Language | Russian |
| Country | Russia |
| Box Office (Worldwide) | ~$38 million |
| IMDb Rating | ~6.4/10 |
| Notable For | Stylish visual effects, supernatural war storyline |
| Series | First film in the Night Watch trilogy |
| Cult Status | International cult fantasy-horror hit |
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Night Watch starts with a battle between the armies of the Dark and the Light. When it becomes clear that both forces are evenly matched a truce is made and the Day Watch and Night Watch are created as a sort of police force. The dark side (Day Watch) is made up of vampires and the light (Night Watch) is those humans who are Other shape shifters, seers, sorcerers and the like. The truce holds for hundreds of years until a “Great Other” that has been spoken about in prophecy is born. Whichever side he chooses, good or evil, will then gain the upper hand.
Now that I’ve watched it I have to say that I’m really disappointed. I didn’t hate it or anything but it definitely wasn’t what I was expecting. First of all get it out of your head that there are lots of fight scenes and monsters. Before anyone yells at me for needing “Hollywood type fight scenes” let me say that I don’t need them but if you aren’t going to have them in your movie then don’t put “In the style of Blade and Underworld” on your box. Most of this movie is talking. This is a supernatural drama, not a horror movie.
I can defiantly appreciate the filming. The shots are moody and atmospheric; the screen is saturated with gloom and grit. The CGI is done well and not overused in fact I wish they would’ve shown more. The all too brief glimpse of a shape shifter was intriguing and I would’ve liked to have seen more. My chief complaint is regarding the few fight scenes. I thought they were too close up, you really couldn’t see much of anything.
There were a lot of times I had no idea what had just happened or what was going on. Some of this could probably be rectified with repeated viewings when I don’t have to concentrate as hard on the subtitles but there were a lot of major WTF moments. It felt like big chunks of the movie had been edited out. The subtitles were lousy, with incorrect tenses, grammar and just not making any sense but I did read that the subtitles have been redone. In the version I saw the subtitles were very thin and white, in the US release I hear they are done very artistically.
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