Night Watch (2004 film)



Night Watch (Ночной Дозор/Nochnoy Dozor) is a 2004 Russian Urban Fantasy supernatural thriller film directed by Timur Bekmambetov and written by Bekmambetov and Laeta Kalogridis. It is loosely based on the 1998 novel The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko. It was the first film in a small franchise based on Lukyanenko's novels.

It was Russia's submission to the 77th Academy Awards for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but was not accepted as a nominee. The film received a limited theatrical release in the United States, where it grossed $1.5 million. It overperformed in the American home video market, generating more than $9.5 million in home video sales and $12 million in home video rentals. It received mixed reviews from critics.

A sequel, Day Watch, was released in 2006.

See Night Watch for tropes in common between the novels and the films. Tropes for both this film and its sequel are catalogued below until such time as a page for Day Watch is created.


 * The Alcoholic: Anton in the beginning of both movies. In the first one, he drinks a lot to pass the taste of blood he has to drink so he could chase vampires. In the second movie he drinks a little too much while reading about Tamerlane..
 * Alternate Continuity: The films, as expressly stated near the beginning of The Last Watch, are an alternate continuity to the novel series. One of the characters retells as a dream one of the most random and over-the-top scenes in the movies, which he dismisses as an alternate reality -- there's more than a hint of a Take That, too. There is also the PC game adaptation, which basically throws the book and movie continuities into a blender.
 * Apocalypse Maiden: In the first movie.
 * Badass Family: The Gorodetsky family.
 * Balance Between Good and Evil
 * Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Towards the beginning of Day Watch, Zavulon goes through a list of Russian celebrities. Some of them are explicitly stated to be Dark Others. Easy to miss for non-Russian audiences, as the list is in Russian and only appears on screen for a few seconds.
 * Being Good Sucks
 * Being Evil Sucks
 * Bloodier and Gorier: Especially how Anton defeats the vampires.
 * Cameo: Lots of Russian celebrities present at the end of the second movie.
 * Cassandra Truth: When Anton tells a police officer he's been drinking blood.
 * Composite Character
 * In the movie, Bear's name is Ilya, while in the books, Bear and Ilya are two different people.
 * Also, the Inquisition, which is a rather big organization in the books, is reduced to two Creepy Twins in the second movie.
 * Film!Yegor seems to combine aspects of Yegor and Kostya in the novels. The Light/Dark conflict strains Anton's relationships with both characters and film!Yegor is introduced like his novel counterpart, but like Kostya in the novel, becomes a vampire. Further, Anton's introduction in the film in which he tries to purchase a spell to induce a miscarriage is taken from a Batman Cold Open in Day Watch (novel), in which it was done by a random woman, but Alissa in the novel also did this successfully.
 * Creepy Twins: The Inquisition in Day Watch.
 * Cultural Translation: In the Russian version, Yegor is watching a Russian cartoon that dealt with vampires. In the international version, the cartoon is replaced by an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
 * The Danza: Kostya's father Gennadiy is renamed to Valeriy in the movie. The actor's name is Valeriy Zolotukhin.
 * Drives Like Crazy: Semyon in Night Watch, Alisa in Day Watch.
 * Dummied Out: The scenes featuring Ignat, as well as the humorous scenes featuring a couple in the plane were removed from the international version of Night Watch.
 * Evil Diva: Alisa
 * The Film of the Book
 * Informed Ability: Tiger Cub says in Night Watch that Bear can shapeshift into a bear, but the latter is unwilling to do a demonstration.
 * In Name Only: Day Watch was not adapted from the book of the same title. While Night Watch was adapted from the first of three stories from the book Night Watch, Day Watch was adapted from the two others.
 * Painful Transformation: Olga
 * Painting the Fourth Wall: Done heavily in the English subtitled version. The subtitles themselves appeared as blood floating across the screen like it did in the pool at the beginning.
 * Product Placement: Oh, where to begin... blatant in the first movie, but better blended in in the second.
 * : The ending of the second movie.
 * Slobs Versus Snobs: The Light Others all look like common people, and the Night Watch even wears blue-collar worker uniforms. Their vehicle of choice is a power grid repairman's truck. The Dark Others all look rich and beautiful.
 * Tagline: The Rusian tagline of Day Watch is "First movie of the year" (which, from Russian, can also be translated as "Movie number one of the year", as in the BEST movie). While it can seem pretentious, it is in fact to be taken literally: the movie's Russian premiere was on the 1st of January, 2006, at 3 a.m.
 * Take That: Night Watch broke every box office record in Russia since pretty much ever. By the time Day Watch was in mid-production, 9th Company (another Russian movie) surpassed that record. In Day Watch, Anton used bill boards as portals. At one point, he emerges from a 9th Company poster, ripping it apart. During the production, the creators of the movie expressed their hope for the movie to surpass 9th Company at the box-office. It did.
 * Time Stands Still: Geser does it.