For any fans of Terry Pratchett, no, this is not a film adaptation of one of his books, but it is a book adaptation though. Night Watch is an adaptation of the first in a trilogy from the works of Sergei Lukyanenko (the other two parts being Day Watch and Dusk Watch) about the battle between the forces of Light and Dark (good and evil). This battle was an active war until a 1000 years ago when the leaders of both sides called a truce.
Now there are two enforcement forces, the Day Watch for the Dark forces and the Night Watch for the Light side. These forces monitor all activity and use their special powers to keep the truce intact and punish anyone who breaks the rules. There is another threat to the truce, however. Prophecy tells that someday the Great One will appear, with the power to end the war in the favour of one side or the other and that when they are identified, both sides will try to convert them to their cause.
Somehow they find out that the Great One is wandering the streets of Moscow and Anton, an Other (Others are non-humans with a variety of skills, some are witches, some vampire, as well as other things) working for the Night Watch, is desparately trying to find the Great One before the forces of darkness do, because if they win the race, evil will sweep across the globe and light will be banished forever.
All sounds good, and with a relatively big budget (huge for a Russian film) it’s a special effects bonanza, though, apparently, not all of them are top notch. The other negative is that the film is in Russian, so will be subtitled. The good news is that while Fox Searchlight are releasing the original film, they may also be planning English language sequels or an English language remake, hopefully, with a bigger budget.
Other than that, it sounds an interesting prospect, and not a million miles away from Blade or Underworld, so it might be worth checking out, especially if you liked either of those films.
Night Watch is released in the UK on 7th October and you can find out more at the official website.
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