Night Watch (2004 film)

The film contains several songs from rock bands, e.g. "Jack" by the Belarusian group TT-34 and "Spanish" by Drum Ecstasy. The song played in the credits of the international version of the movie is called "Shatter" and performed by the Welsh rock band Feeder. The track was a top 20 hit single in the United Kingdom charting at #11 in 2005, to coincide with the international release of the film. The song playing during the end credits of the American release of Night Watch is "Fearless" by The Bravery. In the original Russian version it is a rap song Nochnoy dozor (Finalnyy rep) performed by Uma2rman.

The original score album by Yuri Poteyenko was released in 2021 by the russian label Keepmoving Records in a limited edition with 300 copies. The score from the sequel (Day Watch) has been released in 2020 by the same label.

After premiering at the Moscow Film Festival on 27 June 2004, it went on general cinema release across the CIS on 8 July 2004.

The film attracted the attention of 20th Century Fox through its Fox Searchlight Pictures label, which paid $4 million to acquire the worldwide distribution rights (excluding Russia and the Baltic states) of Night Watch and its sequel Day Watch.[7][8]

One year after the Russian release, the international distribution began. Other than a London premiere at the Odeon West End as part of the Frightfest horror film festival, that screened amid heavy security on 28 August 2005,[9] the first European country outside CIS was Spain where it was released on 2 September 2005. By mid October it had been released in most European countries, and on 17 February 2006 it had a limited release in the United States, followed by a full release on 3 March. By 13 February 2006 (i.e. before the U.S. release) it had grossed US$32 million.

Original English language poster for Night Watch

The "international version" of the film was largely re-edited from the Russian version. In the prologue and epilogue, the Russian voice-over has been dubbed in English, but the characters' dialouge was kept in Russian, with stylized subtitles appearing in odd places around the screen, often animated to emphasise or complement the action. For example, in a scene in which Yegor is being called by a Dark vampire, he is in a pool and the camera is underwater. The caption appears as blood red text that dissolves as blood would in water. In another scene, as a character walks across the scene from left to right, the caption is revealed as his body crosses the screen. In addition, many of the scenes that were present in the Russian theatrical release were omitted, while, at the same time, some scenes were re-cut or added. The International version is shorter by 9 minutes.

The film was released on a two-disc DVD in the UK by 20th Century Fox on 24 April 2006, which featured both the international cut and the Russian theatrical cut, albeit edited disclude the opening credits. An American DVD release followed on June 20, 2006, which only contained the international cut. All the DVD releases contain both Russian and English soundtracks but remove the stylized subtitles, replacing them with simple white subtitles on the bottom of the screen.

The International version of both Night Watch and its sequel, Day Watch, are now available in HD on Vudu. The HDX encodes are based on the International release and retain the original Russian dialog track with the stylized subtitles.

The film was extremely successful, becoming the highest-grossing Russian release ever, grossing US$16.7 million in Russia alone, thus grossing more in Russia than The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

Night Watch holds a 60% rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on 130 reviews, with an average score of 6/10; the consensus states: "This Russian horror/fantasy film pits darkness and light against each other using snazzy CGI visuals to create an extraordinary atmosphere of a dank, gloomy city wrestling with dread."[10] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 58 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[11]

Leslie Felperin from Variety noted the film's allusions to various classic sci-fi and horror pictures and praised the Moscow setting, eccentric characters, and lavish special effects.[12]

Stephen Holden from The New York Times wrote that the picture is "narratively muddled and crammed with many more vampires, shape-shifters and sorcerers than one movie can handle, but it bursts with a sick, carnivorous glee in its own fiendish games".[13]

Film directors Quentin Tarantino and Danny Boyle have highly praised the film.[14]

In 2010, Empire published a list of one hundred best films in the history of world cinema — Night Watch took the hundredth place in it.[15]

A third film, titled Twilight Watch (previously Dusk Watch), was planned after 20th Century Fox bought the distribution rights to the first two movies, with the plan to have it be produced in English as opposed to Russian, however, production was ultimately halted when Timur Bekmambetov was hired to direct Wanted for Universal Pictures. He went on to say that Twilight Watch would be too much like Wanted, and so to avoid working in an artistic rut the project would need to be either distinctively changed, passed to another director, or simply delayed so that intervening projects could be completed.[17]