Welcome to another installment of Disc Dive! This week is a film that I’ve actually seen before, granted it was about 20 years ago. The DVD copy that I own has the original Russian-language version on one side of the disc and the English-language version on the other. For Disc Dive this week I watched the original Russian-language version of… Night Watch (2004).
Title: Night Watch
Director: Timur Bekmambetov
Released: June 27, 2004 (Premiere – Russia – Moscow International Film Festival)
Runtime: 1 hour 54 minutes
Disc Format: DVD
Since the beginning of time there have been “Others” walking amongst us. These Others are supernatural beings (sorcerers, vampires, and shapeshifters) and consist of the Light and the Dark.
After a war between Light and Dark in the medieval times, the leaders of each side agreed to a truce where each side would monitor the other. In addition, neither side is able to influence the humans. They must decide for themselves whether they’re going to follow good or evil forces.
The Night Watch are there to make sure the Dark Others stay in line, while the Day Watch are there to do the same for the Light Others.
Flash forward to modern day Moscow where Anton (Konstantin Khabenskiy), a member of the Night Watch society, is attempting to find a young boy named Egor (Dmitriy Martynov). Unfortunately for Egor though, Anton wasn’t the only one trying to find him. A couple of vampires have captured Egor, though he does wind up escaping.
In his pursuit of Egor, Anton had a horrible vision of a cursed woman. This woman brings tragedy with her wherever she goes.
If she isn’t found and stopped, millions of lives could be at risk.
If that sounded like way too much being crammed into one film, that’s because it is. This film, and its sequel Day Watch, are based on a series of books. I have not read the books, so all I have to go off of is what the film gives us.
Having only seen this once, shortly after its release in the States, all I really remembered about the plot was there was a battle of good versus evil with vampires. In fact, most of what I remembered had to do with the visual effects. While some have aged like fine milk, most of the effects still hold up.
One thing I certainly don’t remember is how choppy the editing is in parts. There are portions of the film where former WWE employee Kevin Dunn would even say that there are too many unnecessary abrupt cuts.
As I mentioned earlier, the plot has a lot going on. It also never really lets off the gas to let things breathe either. We run full-steam ahead for nearly the entire runtime.
Night Watch is unapologetically big and messy. And yet it still manages to be incredibly entertaining.
Have you seen Night Watch (2004)?
If so, leave a comment below or reach out on Bluesky and tell me your thoughts on it!
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