Night Watch and Day Watch

[Olga]

Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor) (2006)

Night Watch and Day Watch

Amazon.com

Night Watch is that rare film that--like The Matrix--is not only visually dazzling but creates an intriguing, seductive, and thrilling alternative world. A young man named Anton, after dabbling in black magic to bring back the wife who left him, discovers that the world is populated by fantastical Others (vampires, shape-shifters, witches, and more) who have chosen sides--Light or Dark--in an epic battle.

Night Watch and Day Watch

A truce has been declared; both sides watch the other to ensure the truce is maintained. But a prophecy has predicted that a powerful Other will tilt the balance, and Anton--who is himself an Other--finds himself crucial to the prophecy's fulfillment. There's no question that Night Watch has weaknesses.

[Olga]

Night Watch and Day Watch

Numerous plot holes get glossed over by pell-mell pacing, the visual conception of the apocalyptic battle between Light and Dark is curiously pedestrian (a bunch of knights fighting a bunch of guys in fur with swords--what happened to their various powers?), and more--but, much like similar problems with The Matrix, it doesn't matter.

Night Watch and Day Watch

The alternative world Night Watch presents is so rich with possibilities that it takes on a life of its own, both as an imaginative universe and as a vivid metaphor for the moral complexities of our own lives--for example, though the forces of Light claim to be good, their often brutal actions call their virtue into question, and the forces of Dark make some compelling moral arguments on the topic.

Night Watch and Day Watch

The movie is so overstuffed with ideas that many don't get fleshed out, but that only contributes to the sense of vitality and unexplored dimensions. Even the subtitles are used creatively. The impending sequels (this is the first film of a trilogy) may--like The Matrix--take all the stimulating possibilities Night Watch raises and drag them into the toilet, but for the moment, this is the sort of electric excitement that blockbuster movies promise but so rarely deliver. --Bret Fetzer

Night Watch and Day Watch

Product Description
Among normal humans live the "Others" possessing various supernatural powers. They are divided up into the forces of light and the forces of the dark, who signed a truce several centuries ago to end a devastating battle. Ever since, the forces of light govern the day while the night belongs to their dark opponents. In modern day, the dark Others actually roam the night as vampires while a "Night Watch" of light forces, among them Anton, try to control them and limit their outrage.

[Rvrwind]

I've seen Night Watch twice. The first time in Russian & the second time in Russian with English subtitles. I have yet to see Day Watch & look forward to getting the opportunity.

[Olga]

Day Watch

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This article is about the 2006 film. For the sequel to the Night Watch novel, see Day Watch (novel) .

Night Watch and Day Watch

Day Watch (Russian: Дневно́й дозо́р, Dnevnoi Dozor), a Russian fantasy action blockbuster marketed as "the first film of the year", opened in theatres across Russia on January 1, 2006 and opened in the U.S. on June 1, 2007. It is a sequel to the 2004 film Night Watch, featuring the same cast. It is based on the second and the third part of Sergey Lukyanenko's novel The Night Watch rather than its follow-up novel Day Watch. The film's budget was USD$4.2 million and was expected to gross $40 million in Russia alone. It is the second part in the Night Watch trilogy, although the third film (Dusk or Twilight Watch) is as yet unmade.

[Olga]

Plot

It is New Year's Eve of 2006, more than one year after the events of Night Watch. Anton Gorodetsky, the protagonist of the first film, finds himself in the middle of an approaching conflict between the Light and Dark Others, who are still bound with an uneasy truce. Anton is still a Night Watch operative, now working with his trainee and romantic interest, Svetlana (the healer from the first film, now a Light Other). As his son Yegor has now become a Dark Other, Anton is forced to secretly destroy evidence of Yegor's attacks on normal people, which violate the treaty, leaving the Night Watch unable to sentence Yegor.

To redeem for his previous mistake, an attempt to use a witch's service to kill the unborn Yegor (shown in the beginning of the first film), Anton seeks the legendary Chalk of Fate, a magical chalk that could rewrite history, which was once Tamerlane's property and one of the main reasons for his numerous military successes.

[Olga]

Meanwhile, Zavulon, the leader of the Dark Others and their Day Watch, is waiting for Yegor's birthday. At the birthday, Yegor would become a Great Other and acquire the power that would allow the Dark Others to break the treaty (which is only supported because the Others fear that the two sides will destroy each other). Being grateful to Anton for his covering of Yegor doesn't stop the Day Watch from trying to frame Anton and get him sentenced for murder. They succeed, despite the efforts made by Boris Ivanovich (Gesser) (the head of the Night Watch) to protect Anton from the Dark Others by switching his body with that of Olga the sorceress (in this form, his relationship with Svetlana suddenly gains a boost, as Svetlana confesses to the false Olga that she actually loves Anton).

Night Watch and Day Watch

[Olga]

Finally Anton gets hold of the Chalk of Fate, but it is soon stolen by Yegor. Zavulon cannot use or even touch the Chalk (it would be a direct violation of the treaty), and it ends up being used by Alisia Donnikova, Zavulon's minion, for her personal desires. Yegor's birthday party begins soon after that; the guests are Dark Others (some of them are Russian pop stars), although Anton makes his way to the party as Yegor's father and pretends to be drunk to expose the real committer of the murder he has been charged with - his neighbor vampire, Kostya's father. He is unable, however, to avert a disaster: as Svetlana rushes to the party to find Anton, she pushes Yegor and accidentally spills his blood, prompting Zavulon to break the treaty.

Night Watch and Day Watch

[Olga]

Yegor, now a Great Other, unleashes an apocalypse upon Moscow. The city is nearly destroyed, starting with the Ostankino Tower; a fierce battle between the Light and Dark Others follows, with few survivors on each side. One of them, however, is Anton, who manages to reclaim the Chalk of Fate from Alisia and runs through the ruins of Moscow to the house where he, thirteen years ago, made his visit to the witch — the visit that caused the entire sequence of events, starting Anton's own initiation into the Night Watch. Anton writes "NO" on a wall in this house; Moscow reverts to normal, and time is thrown back to 1992.

In the epilogue, as a result of the Chalk's influence, Anton rethinks his intent to kill his unborn child and decides not to strike a deal with the witch. He walks out of the house, into the street, where he meets Svetlana, and where Zavulon and Gesser are sitting on a bench, without any signs of hostility, wondering whether Anton will recognize her or not. Eventually Gesser's prediction that he will recognize her comes true, and the film ends with Anton and Svetlana walking together down the street and away.

[Olga]

Russian vs North American releases

The North American (US and Canada) release of Day Watch is subtitled in the same style as the North American release of Night Watch. The subtitles are animated in even more ways than Night Watch, using color, movement and effects to reflect the on-screen action.

One of the key differences between the North American release and the Russian original is that while they both open with a particular sequence, the North American version is truncated.

    * The Russian original shot has voiceover text spoken while credits blow away like chalk dust in the wind over a mountain landscape, the mountain landscape is then revealed to be the Chalk of Fate, we then see the stronghold that the chalk is kept in, and then the stronghold becomes a map. The North American release cuts out the first half of this sequence in favour of having text on-screen that is read. Instead it is replaced by a recap of Night Watch getting the audiences up to speed if newcomers never saw the first film.

    * Many edits have taken place in the film and mostly explained due to the new subtitles.

- Though meaningless to say which little scenes were missed:

    * Svetlana chasing Yegor in the streets is shortened by cutting out the man dropping the pot on himself.
    * Anton drinking more beer before leaving.
    * When Anton is shutting off the computer, Anatoli comes in the office and plays basketball is removed.
    * Galina Rogova after she is killed, the Russian version shows that an old lady comes down saying its her daughter. In the North American release, she is just a neighbor which then preceeds to cut out the whole scene between Alisa and Galina's daughter.
    * When Anton's cell phone is smashed by Yegor, he uses a payphone in which calls his ex-wife Irina to know where Yegor is. Scene is removed.
    * Anton being chased by Dark Others is kept shorter where instead of showing a security guard in the train station and Anton runs into a train to escape. He is just on the train.
    * Anton and Parrot's confrontation involved Anton slamming the phone on Parrot's finger then a punch to the face.
    * Anton's confrontation with "Vityok" is shortened as originally "Vityok" punches Anton three times then he disappears into the Gloom. Only one punch and then Anton enters the Gloom. Then from there he just arrives with the map of the hotel in his hand at the door.
    * Anton's mischief is toned down as he doesn't sing.
    * The Semi-truck and Gorsvet chase are combined, which complicates the next scene. The Russian edit of the film has a bunch of bikers attacking the Gorsvet truck when Olga is trying to help Svetlana. The bikers just happen right at the same time of the chase.
    * As for Olga helping Svetlana: the Russian edit had Yegor stabbing Sveta with a charged needle and then he would try to drain her. That scene is completely removed.
    * The foil ball is expressed as an emotion that Yegor could use to bring Darkness into the world.

[Olga]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C1AUZeKZp8" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C1AUZeKZp8</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiRRfrn2Id0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiRRfrn2Id0</a>

Making of Day Watch

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTLhzVU9GLY" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTLhzVU9GLY</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_ZcUwT6JSs" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_ZcUwT6JSs</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL7kF0oOhzI" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL7kF0oOhzI</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2bZb_Gt8V4" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2bZb_Gt8V4</a>