I had wanted to see this a long time ago, but after seeing WANTED I decided i wanted to see Night Watch and it’s sequel, and I was not disappointed, in fact I think I enjoyed these films more than I enjoyed WANTED, and am hoping that his US debut does not curtail plans to make the 3rd film in the series. In fact I enjoyed these so much that I am planning on reading the books by Sergei Lukyanenko to see what changed, and find out how it ends. These films are really visually stunning, and the FX are well done, and the story and character are excellent. This is really an impressive series, and amazing that this film was made for a mere $4.2 Million US! And even the subtitles are done graphically to help tell the story! Wow!

The film opens with us being told of an ancient battle between beings with extra powers called Others, who fight for either light or dark. The forces of good were led by Gessar (Vladmimi Menshov) and evil was led by Zavulon (Viktor Verzhbitsky). Gessar realizes they were evenly matched, and so made a parlay, where the set up a truce, forming the good Night Watch and the evil Day Watch to maintain balance, until the day a Great One will come and chose a side and tip the balance of power.

In 1992 in Russia a man named Anton Gorodetsky (Konstantin Khabensky) went to a woman who practiced black magic, to try and get his wife back who was cheating on him. The woman tells him she is pregnant by the other man, and the fetus must be aborted to bring her back. Aton accepts responsibility and she starts, and Anton sees his wife leaving the man, and then writhing in pain on the ground, but then 3 people rush into the room, including a shape shigter and capture the woman, and Anton sees them, and they realize he must be an Other as well, and just didn’t know it yet. We then jump 12 years ahead, and Anton has joined the 3, and is now a member of nightwatch, but he is an alcoholic, and lives in squalor. He is set to hunt a female vampire who is using the voice to take a child, but he is out of blood to be able to see, so he gets his friendly vampiric neighbor Kostya (Aleksei Chadov) to get his some blood (pigs blood) from his father. The father does it, though telling Kostya, that Night Watch people only do that to hunt Vampires.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

Anton is sent out to follow a 12 year old boy named Yegor (Dmitri Martynov), whom the vampires plan on feeding on. Anton gets close and is following the boy on the subway, when he sees a strange woman with blond hair named Svetlana (Mariya Poroshina) who has something strange about her and distracts him. Yegor ends up going to a building with the two vampires hunting him, and Anton tracks them, though doesn’t call in help early enough to help him. The vampires are moving in the dark space in between worlds called the Gloom, and are hard to see, and he ends up burning the female vampires face, but when fighting the man, he accidentally kills him, which is against the agreement, and puts Anton on Zavulon’s bad side.

Anton is healed by Gessar, who tells him a legend of a cursed virgin who makes people and animals around her die, and who is surrounded by a vortex. The virgin has been reborn and must either be killed or they must find out who cursed her, and it is Svetlana who he saw on the train. Gessar gives Anton a stuffed owl to be his assistant named Olga, though he doesn’t accept her, so Gessar throws it out the window and the Owl flies away.

When Anton arrives home the owl comes and turns into a human, this is Olga (Galina Tyunina) a great one who was severely punished. The two go to Yegor’s home to find him, as he is being tracked by the burnt female vampire. They find Yegor, but he has gone into the gloom, and almost gets lost in it, as it turns out he is an other as well. Anton sees a photo of Yegor’s mother and realizes it was his wife from 12 years before. Anton and Olga are called by Gessar to go and work on Svetlana as the vortex is getting worse and has to be solved now, so they are replaced by Tiger and Bear, but they get distracted and Yegor gets drawn to the vampire.

Anton goes in to talk to Svetlana, and finally finds that she in fact cursed herself, and she is an other, and the vortex disapears, so he heads back to get Yegor.

Yegor is given by the female vampire to Zavulon, and Zavulon tells him that Anton tried to have him killed as a fetus, and this causes Yegor, who is Anton’s son and the prophesied great one, to turn to the dark side, and tilt the balance of powerevil.

••••

Wow, I really enjoyed this film. Very very cool! Great visuals and a compelling story. I really want to read the book. Timur is a great visualist, and I look forward to seeing what he does from now on.

••••

Hmm, I did really enjoy these films, so much in fact that I have since read the first 3 books, Night Watch, Day Watch and Twilight Watch, and think they are vastly better than the movies. In fact the movies break some of the basic tenants of the books, and it really hurts the story.

The books are set up as a series of stories with the same characters, and in the movies they combined them, and even took stories from other characters. Like the story with Yegor was not Anton, and if he had become an Other by trying to kill Yegor’s fetus he would joined the night watch. The books are so much better. And most of what happened in the 2 films was in fact mostly from the first book alone.

I so wish they had done the great visuals, but stuck to the story so they could have made more films in the series, and done a true adaption.