leeroy711 Blog

Since the dawn of time, vampires, witches, and shape-shifters (known in this film as "others") have been fighting each other over mankind. The two groups are called the "light others" (the good) and the "dark others" (the evil). Thousands of years ago, the two sides called a truce. The primary condition of the truce: that every human must be free to choose between light and dark. The protectors of this truce are called Night Watch (light others) and Day Watch (dark other). They are constantly policing each other in search of violations of the truce. We enter this story in present day Moscow in the midst of a prophecy fulfillment. This film is the first part of a trilogy based on Sergei Lukyanenko's best selling novels: Night Watch, Day Watch and Dusk Watch.

Review:
The plot of this film was far more involved than any of its American counterparts. It definitely commands more attention than "Underworld" or "Constantine" to follow the story.
I enjoyed the effects a great deal. The director seemed to focus on giving the film a more artsy feel rather than dazzling the audience with big production effects. Certain scenes are more unreal and almost seem cheesy. This gives the film more of a sci-fi feel than a horror feel.  Although in some cases the effects were both. I particularly liked the "gloom" scenes. I also love that the subtitles are given a little extra attention and are actually integrated as part of the feature. This makes them less of a distraction and keeps the overall mood of the movie continuous.
I didn't find anything particularly great about the acting. The plot and the effects definitely carry the film and it wasn't necessary for the cast to be anything much more than adequate, which they were.

Overall I would recommend this film to anyone. I would highly recommend it to anyone that has an interest in the subject matter or someone that just enjoys digging up foreign films. I can't wait for the American versions of the second two installments.