Night Watch:Nochnoi Dozor (2004 film)
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| Night Watch Nochnoi Dozor | |
|---|---|
_theatrical_poster.jpg) International poster | |
| Directed by | Timur Bekmambetov |
| Produced by | Konstantin Ernst Anatoli Maksimov |
| Screenplay by | Timur Bekmambetov Sergei Lukyanenko (Original) Timur Bekmambetov Laeta Kalogridis (English) |
| Based on | The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko |
| Starring | Konstantin Khabensky Vladimir Menshov Valeri Zolotukhin Maria Poroshina Galina Tyunina |
| Music by | Yuri Poteyenko |
| Cinematography | Sergey Tromifov |
| Editing by | Dimitry Kiselev |
| Studio | Channel One Russia Bazelevs Company |
| Distributed by | Gemini Film Fox Searchlight Pictures |
| Release date(s) | July 8, 2004 |
| Running time | 115 minutes |
| Country | Russia |
| Language | Russian |
| Budget | $4.2 million |
| Box office | $33,899,078 |
Plot
In the prologue, which is set in medieval times, the audience is introduced to humans with special powers called The Others (Иные, иной; Inyye, Inoy). The Others are allied with the forces of either Light or Dark, and the prologue recounts a great battle between the two factions. Geser, the lord of Light, realizes that the two forces are evenly matched and will annihilate each other. In parley with Zavulon, the 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 (Russian: Антон Городецкий) visits an old woman, Daria, who he believes is able to bring his wife back. Daria tells him that his wife is pregnant by another man and that she must miscarry, because giving birth bonds her to that other man. Anton accepts responsibility for this. Daria prepares a drink using 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 and shapeshifts into a tiger. The Night Watch team works together to restrain the old woman. They express surprise when Anton sees them, and they note that he must be an Other. Twelve years later, Anton has become a member of the Night Watch and is working with the team. On Anton's request, Kostya, his neighbor, takes him to see his father, a butcher, to get blood for Anton to drink. The father does this reluctantly, and then tells Kostya that members of the Night Watch only drink blood when they hunt vampires like themselves.
A twelve-year-old boy, Yegor, hears "The Call" - a psychic call by a vampire who intends to feed. Anton tracks Yegor, being able to hear the call as he gets closer to Yegor, due 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 wind. Realizing she is under a deadly curse, Anton uses a magical flashlight in an attempt to remove the curse, but fails. Two vampires are about to feed on Yegor when Anton arrives, and he is attacked by the male vampire, whom Anton can only see in a mirror. Anton hurts the female vampire with the remaining energies of the flashlight, forcing her to hide. The other members of the Night Watch arrive and turn on the head lights of their truck, which are enchanted in the same way as Anton's flashlight. Anton then picks up a mirror shard and directs the light from the truck towards the male vampire, destroying him. A member of the Day Watch arrives and reveals that the Day Watch is 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 Twilight - a shadow world only accessible by the Others. After Anton tells him about the woman in the subway, he reveals a legend about a virgin who is cursed so that people and animals around her die or sicken, and that she is accompanied by a vortex of damnation. It is now clear that the virgin, now reborn, will soon die, unless the Night Watch finds the one who cursed her. Geser gives Anton an assistant called Olga, which looks like 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 Twilight, as Yegor is there hiding from the female vampire. The Twilight almost consumes Yegor, but a blood sacrifice from Anton satisfies it enough for them to escape. Emerging from the Twilight, Anton sees a photo of Yegor and his mother, who is apparently Anton's wife. The Night Watch members, Tiger and Bear, stay behind to protect Yegor, but as soon as they are distracted, the boy escapes and follows the call of the female vampire.
Anton and Olga arrive at a command and control center set up near the apartment of Svetlana, the cursed woman 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, and not his wife's lover's. Therefore, Yegor is Anton's son. Anton enters Svetlana's apartment and talks to her, revealing that she cursed herself on her own, which also means she is an Other. As soon as this is revealed, the curse ends and the vortex disappears. Yegor escapes the grip of the female vampire, but is caught by Zavulon, who appears on 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. As Yegor finds out that Anton tried to kill him before he was born, and that he's now supposed to be the Great One, he willingly turns to the Dark, to Anton's dismay.
Cast
- Konstantin Khabensky as Anton Gorodetsky
- Vladimir Menshov as Geser
- Valeri Zolotukhin as Kostya's father
- Maria Poroshina as Svetlana
- Galina Tyunina as Olga
- Yuriy "Gosha" Kutsenko as Ignat
- Aleksei Chadov as Kostya
- Zhanna Friske as Alicia Donnikova
- Ilya Lagutenko as Andrei
- Viktor Verzhbitsky as Zavulon
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.[2] 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) shots 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.[3]
Music
The film contains several songs from rock bands, e.g. "Jack" by the Belarusian group TT-34 and "Spanish" by Drum Ecstasy. The song played in the credits of the international version of the movie is called "Shatter" and performed by the Welsh rock band Feeder. The track was a top 20 hit single in the United Kingdom charting at #11 in 2005, to coincide with the international release of the film. The song playing during the end credits of the American release of Night Watch is "Fearless" by The Bravery. In the original Russian version it is a rap.[citation needed]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 Fellowship of the Ring. 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.[4][5]
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,[6] 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.
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 re-dub
In 2005, a "fun re-dub" 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 re-dubs 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.
Sergei Lukyanenko
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 the logical 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 "
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