I watched this thanks to a glowing recommendation by friend Qiao Yang and I doubt you need me to convince you to watch after reading what he has to say. I'll just add a few comments. The director of the film, Timur Bekmambetov, is something like a Kazakh version of Spike Jonze. He was best know for his stylish commercials before being hired to direct this trilogy, based on the novels of Sergey Lukyanenko, in the same way that Peter Jackson was handed the whole Tolkien trilogy. This first entry, which cost just $5 million to make, has every bit as distinctive and high quality a look as those peers manage with far bigger Hollywood budgets.
The conceit of the story involves an ages old struggle between beings known as the Others. They are people who seem human at birth but eventually discover that they have supernatural powers--shape-shifting, premonitions, etc.. Some choose to serve Darkness and they are led by General Zavulon. Others serve the Light and are led by Gesser. In the 14th Century the two sides met in epic battle on a bridge and when Gesser saw that they would all die he called a halt to the fighting and negotiated a truce with Zavulon. The terms of the truce require that new Others be allowed to freely choose which side they'll serve. The armies have been converted to the Day Watch and the Night Watch, keeping a careful eye on each other to make sure the agreement is observed. Both await the coming of a prophecied most powerful Other whose choice of sides may tip the delicate balance.
The film then skips ahead to 1992, when young Anton Gorodetsky visits a witch in order to win back his estranged wife. The witch tells him that while she can fulfill this desire the unborn child--that Anton didn't know about--was fathered by another man and will serve to pull her away from him again, so she needs to kill the baby for the spell to be truly effective. A somewhat disbelieving Anton consents, but in the midst of the spell-casting he seems to change his mind and a team from the Night Watch shows up to stop and arrest the witch before the abortion can be completed. The Night Watch recognizes that Anton is himself an Other and the film skips ahead to 2004, when he has joined them, for the bulk of the action.
In the current day storyline, Anton -- whose power includes visions of the future -- is tasked with finding two Dark Others, vampires who are using the Call to lure a young boy. During his search he encounters a woman with a literal dark cloud over her head. She's been cursed and nearly anyone she comes in contact with has some disaster occur to them. This curse is so powerful that she's triggering natural disasters too and a Vortex has centered around her that threatens to destroy the world. All of these stories are ultimately intertwined until the finale of the film when the great Other makes the choice between Light and Dark.
What I found almost as interesting as the film was the dichotomous reaction to it by critics. Beyond the obvious Manichean drama, the director has explained his vision of the film as follows:
For Bekmambetov, the members of Night Watch and their opposite members in the Day Watch represent two different, competing social philosophies. "They represent two different ways to live -- total freedom versus responsibility," he comments. "The Day Watch are the Dark Ones and they represent a kind of totally free independence, but the Night Watchers are all about responsibility and conscience. It's a dualism that's existed for a thousand years. It's a very old idea that you must consider the consequences of your actions."
-REVIEW: of Night Watch (Emanuelle Levy)
And one character explains why some people would choose to become Dark Others thus: "It is easier for a man to destroy the Light inside himself than to defeat the darkness all around him." Yet Roger Ebert dismissed the plot, saying:
I confess to a flagging interest in the struggle between the forces of Light and Darkness. It's like Super Sunday in a sport I do not follow...
At the point where you've lost interest in questions of Good vs. Evil and the balance of Freedom and Security it seems fair to say that you've lost interest in what it means to be human. I can see someone not liking the movie or disagreeing with what it has to say about these issues -- and, of course, the all important matter of abortion is at the very center of the story -- but it's hard to comprehend not being engaged by them. That this film manages to entertain us so thoroughly while making us consider them is its very great strength.
