I’ve heard talk about this movie on and off for a little while now, and it was only this morning that I took the time to track down the trailer, and I wasn’t disappointed. Plus, it wasn’t really hard to do seeing as Apple have it!
It’s stunning. It really is, the effects look fantastic, and you get a sense of the movie really quickly. No, I mean after that bit, once you’ve calmed down. Style in a abundance, and it’s come out of relatively nowhere, and it’s Russian (I don’t mean the trailer is quick!). I really urge you to watch this trailer and get excited for it. I am, and I can’t wait.
I’ll refrain from discussing anything in it, and leave that for the comments. Go watch that trailer above for Nochnoy Dozor or Nightwatch. I have to say though that those dreaded words part of a trilogy scare me slightly. Let’s hope it’s not cursed.
No problem…common mistake!
Oh well, my bad. I’m total newbie here and just connect Movie Blog and John as good old couple…maybe it’s audio editions or something that make me think so. :)
Nah, some guy called Richard…says so under the post.
Oh, well, I thought that the first message (aka the news) is written by John.
John’s message?
Fox Searchlight has definetely produced some great movies in last years, but still, I couln’t see the great horror movie in this one. Child actors seems to have big roles, never a good thing.
Seems kind of epic to mee (as the trailer says), maybe too epic. I like my horror-movies in smaller scale. But, due this all negative enargy that my message might cause, I think that there is still chance that this movie can rock. Haven’t heard of it before Johns message but it has about 1/3 chance to be great movie, but it can also be total waste of time. Still, that is more than can say most of the new horror movies.
Fox has picked up up for domestic distribution if there is a high-res quicktime trailer out there. I’ve seen it…here is a short review which I posted on my blog (kurtscomment.blogspot.com) in October 2004:
Here is the Russian sci-fi thriller based on the book of the same name, and this years entry into the Foreign Film Oscar nomination race. It is usually cause for worry when a film begins with multiple prologues and this film has two of them.
The first begins with a mythic battle between good and evil armies in the centre of a narrow bridge that immediately conjures up comparisons to the big army shots in Lord of the Rings. The second is thousands of years later when a schlub of a man goes to a fortune teller and finds out that his wife will leave him for another man because she is pregnant by her. The very helpful fortune teller offers to kill the fetus in the mother for an extra fee and one other condition…that the man will take responsibility for his actions in the afterlife. Weirdness ensues as we get a peek behind the supernatural curtain. Flash forward 12 years and the story of Mages, Vampires and Shapeshifters in some major Russian Urban centre battling it out before a prophecy is fulfilled. It’s somewhere between Underworld (crap that that film was…) and The Highlander (a genre classic) but with a lot more gore than either.
Add this to the release of France’s Immortel, China’s Zu Warriors and you are beginning to get the sense that the rest of the world wants to make big explosive genre pics like Hollywood has been turning out since Star Wars. I don’t know if this is a good thing, but Nightwatch has such a twisted and organic sensibility. It is squishy, bloody and twisted like a good Cronenberg film, but without the subtext.
This is pretty straight-up plot driven story telling, and it occupies with its visual candy, for its 2 hour run time. Then you find out that there is a cliff-hanger ending and two more chapters to come (again, comparisons to Lord of the Rings). Would I recommend this movie? Well it’s too obtuse and exposition free for any non-genre fans to make any sense of. I’m still undecided on whether or not this is a good thing. Let’s just say you are just thrown into the mix thinking: “I would probably have understood this better if I had read the book.”
This was one of Tarantino’s favorite films from last year, if I remember correctly. Any word on an American domestic release?