Night Watch ( ,
Nochnoi dozor) is a Russian
action fantasy horror film
by the Kazakhstan
-born film director
Timur Bekmambetov. It is
loosely based on the novel
The Night Watch, and is the
first part of a
trilogy, followed by
Day Watch and ending supposedly
with
Twilight Watch
(although the rights for it were acquired by FOX, production has
not been started yet).
Plot
In the prologue, which is set in
medieval
times, humans with extra powers are called Others (Иные, иной;
Inye, Inoy). The Others are proponents of either light or
dark and confront each other to do battle. Geser, lord of light,
realizes that the two forces are evenly matched and both will be
destroyed. In parley with Zavulon , general of Dark, the two agree
to a truce in which the light will form a Night Watch and the dark
a Day Watch to maintain the balance before the coming of the Great
One who will choose either Light or Dark and thereby bring one to
prominence.
In modern
Russia, when his wife leaves him for another man, Anton
Gorodetsky ( ) goes to see an old woman, Daria, who he believes
will be able to bring her back. Daria tells him that his
wife is pregnant by the other man and that she must be made to
miscarry, because if she gives birth she will return to the other
man. Anton accepts responsibility for this. Daria prepares a drink
involving Anton's blood which he drinks. The shot cuts to his wife
telling the other man they have to split up. Daria starts to recite
an incantation to induce an abortion, and Anton's wife on a distant
boat collapses and clutches at her womb. Just as the incantation is
about to be complete, two figures become visible in the room, and a
third appears at the door, who
shapeshifts into a tiger, and restrains the old
woman. They express surprise when Anton sees them and note that he
must be an "Other".
Twelve years later, Anton has become a member of the Night Watch
along with the three figures. At Anton's request, Kostya, his
neighbor, takes him to his father, a butcher, to procure blood for
Anton to drink. The father does so reluctantly, and after Anton
leaves he says that the Night Watch only drink blood when they are
hunting a vampire, such as themselves.
A twelve-year-old boy, Yegor , is hearing "The Call" - a psychic
call by a
vampire who intends to feed. Anton
tracks Yegor, being able to hear the call as he nears Yegor, thanks
to the blood he drank. On the way he sees a blond woman with her
hair flying about even though she is inside a subway train with no
airflow.
Two vampires are about to feed on Yegor when Anton arrives, and he
is attacked by the male vampire, whom Anton can see only in a
mirror. Anton wounds the female vampire, who hides. The other
members of the Night Watch arrive and turn on special lights on
their truck. Anton then picks up a mirror shard and directs the
light from the truck towards the male vampire's chest, destroying
him. A member of the Day Watch arrives and reveals that the Day
Watch are aware of the "murder" of one of their dark ones.
Anton is healed by Geser who notes that he could have solved things
more easily by entering into the Gloom - a shadow world only
available for the Others. After Anton tells him about the woman in
the subway, he reveals a legend about a virgin who was cursed and
people and animals around her died or sickened, she was accompanied
by a vortex of damnation. Either this virgin who has been reborn
must die or they must find who cursed her. Geser gives Anton an
assistant called Olga in the shape of a stuffed owl. Anton refuses
and laughs until he sees Geser throw it out the window, whereupon
it turns into a living owl that flies away.
At Anton's apartment, the owl arrives and shapeshifts into a woman.
Kostya arrives and says he knows that Anton killed the vampire Dark
Other. Anton and Olga track Yegor to his home where they must enter
the Gloom as Yegor is there hiding from the female vampire. The
Gloom almost takes Yegor, but a blood sacrifice from Anton
distracts it enough for them to escape. Emerging from the Gloom,
Anton sees a photo of Yegor and his mother, Anton's wife of twelve
years ago. Night Watch members Tiger and Bear arrive to protect
Yegor but they start kissing and the boy follows the call of the
female vampire.
Anton and Olga go to a command and control center set up near the
apartment of the woman, Svetlana, from the subway train. A vortex,
capable of immense destruction, has appeared over her apartment and
bad things have been happening to those near her. Anton discovers
that Daria had lied to him and that the boy he tried to abort was
in fact his own son, not his wife's lover's. Therefore Yegor is
Anton's son. Anton enters Svetlana's apartment and talks with her,
whereby it is revealed that she cursed herself, meaning she is an
Other. This revealed, the curse ends and the vortex
disappears.
Yegor escapes the grips of the female vampire and tries to save
Anton's life after Zavulon enters from the roof. During a duel,
Anton attempts to stab Zavulon, but Zavulon sidesteps the swipe
just as Yegor runs up. Zavulon stops Anton's momentum, both saving
Yegor's life and making it appear as if Anton were attempting to
kill his son. Zavulon's assistant reads Anton's personal file
aloud, and hearing that Anton tried to kill him before he was born,
Yegor willingly turns to the Dark, much to Anton's dismay.
Cast
Production
The film
was the first big-budget Russian fantasy film and one of the first blockbusters made after the
collapse of the Soviet
film
industry. The film was produced by
Channel One, the government-owned TV
channel, with a budget of
US$4.2 million. It was shot in a 1.85:1
aspect ratio.
Part of the challenge for such a big-budget fantasy film was
creating hundreds of
visual effects
(VFX)
shot to which a modern audience is
accustomed. 16 Russian
VFX studios and several
freelancers were used, each chosen for their individual strengths.
Many shots were created by different artists across different
time zones, using the Internet to share
data and images.
Music
The movie contains several songs from rock bands, e.g. "Jack" by
the Belarusian group
TT-34.The song played in
the credits of the international version of the movie is called
"Shatter" and performend by the UK rock band
Feeder.In the original Russian version it is a
rap which summarizes the movie plot in a funny way.
Release and reception
After a
first appearance at the Moscow
Film Festival on June 27, 2004, it went on
general cinema release across the CIS on July 8,
2004. The film was extremely successful, becoming
the highest-grossing Russian release ever, grossing US$16.7 million in Russia alone, thus
making more money in Russia than The
Lord of the Rings. The sequel,
Day Watch, was released across the CIS on
January 1, 2006, with a third film in the works. There is also a TV
series in production.
The film
attracted the attention of Fox
Searchlight Pictures, which paid $4 million to acquire the
worldwide distribution rights (excluding Russia and the
Baltic states) of Night Watch
and its sequel Day
Watch.
Fox Searchlight also offered to
finance the third part.
As a consequence, the third part will be
filmed in the United
States
, likely with other actors speaking English instead of Russian.
International release
One year after the Russian release, the international distribution
began.
Other than a London
premiere at
the Odeon West End as part of the Frightfest horror film festival,
that screened amid heavy security on August 28, 2005, the first
European country outside CIS was Spain
where it was
released on September 2, 2005. By mid October it had
been released in most European countries, and on February 17, 2006
it had a limited release in the United States, followed by a full release on March 3. By
February 13, 2006 (i.e. before the U.S. release) it had grossed
US$32 million.
Original English language poster for
Night Watch
The
"international version" of the film debuted in the United Kingdom
. In the prologue and epilogue, the Russian
voice-over has been
dubbed in English, but for the rest of
the film features stylized
subtitles appearing in odd places
around the screen, often animated to emphasise or complement the
action. For example, in a scene in which Yegor is being called by a
Dark vampire, he is in a pool and the camera is underwater. The
caption appears as blood red text that dissolves as blood would in
water. In another scene, as a character walks across the scene from
left to right, the caption is revealed as his body crosses the
screen. In addition, many of the scenes that were present in the
Russian theatrical release were omitted, while, at the same time,
some scenes were re-cut or added. The International version is
shorter by 10 minutes. Overall, it helped to make the film's plot
clearer than it was in the original theatrical version, though many
purists argue that the deletions subtract from the film.
The
DVD was released in the UK on April 24,
2006. The
zone 4 DVD had the
option of either a Russian or an English audiotrack. Subtitles were
simply plain white text at the bottom of the screen. The
International version of both
Night Watch and its sequel,
Day Watch, are now available in
HD on
Vudu. The HDX encodes are based on the
International release and retain the original Russian dialog track
with the stylized subtitles.The original Russian "Director's Cut"
of the film was released, apart from Russia, in some European
countries on DVD by 20th Century FOX. The only difference of this
version from the original Russian version is the absence of the
opening credits.
"Nochnoi Bazar" Fun redub
In the year 2005, a release of a "fun redub" of the movie was
released under the title "Nochnoi Bazar" ("Night Chat"). The
project was initiated by the writer
Sergei Lukyanenko as a nod to popular
(illegal) fun redubs by "Goblin" (
Dmitry
Puchkov). However, this fun redub was made with full consent of
the filmmakers and copyright holders and released on DVD by
Channel One Russia. The script
was written by the Russian comedian
Alexander Bachilo, the song parodies were
written and composed by
Alexander
Pushnoy.
The narration was done by Leonid Volodarskiy, a popular voiceover translator of pirated videoreleases in
the Soviet
Union
.
Novel vs. film
The film primarily follows the events of first part ("Story One:
Destiny") of the novel
Night Watch, with two opening
scenes added from later in the series. Although the movie had one
of the biggest budgets in the history of Russian filmmaking, there
were still restraints on its content, especially given the length
of the original three-hundred page, three-part book. Some of the
changes made were small and insignificant; others significantly
altered the nature of the plot. So, the film doesn't precisely
follow the contents of the book - rather, the blockbuster is
composed of different episodes, found in both "Night Watch" and
"Day Watch" books by Sergei Lukyanenko. In the film certain scenes
were reassessed, the plot line (as a chain of episodes and logic
links between them) has been significantly modified.
The subtitles of the English language version reflect some
difference in translation: the "gloom" in the film is translated as
"twilight" in the book; the name transliterated as "Yegor" in the
film is transliterated as "Egor" in the book, and "Zavulon" in the
movie is transliterated as "Zabulon" in the book.
See also
References
- Twilight Watch on IMDB
- Box Office Business at IMDb
- Can 'Dusk' follow 'Night'? Fox claims to have
snared a Russian Peter Jackson.
- 20th Century Fox to Distribute 'Night Watch' and
'Day Watch' from Russia's Channel One — ORT.
- Third Watch To Shoot In U.S.?
- Review of Frightfest 2005
External links
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