The first Russian science fiction film in the last 15 years is released

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

A film directed by Timur Bekmambetov (a well-known clip-maker and creator of commercials for Bank Imperial, which has credited The Arena) (produced by Roger Korman) based on the novel of the same name by Sergei Lukyanenko (the first in the Night Watch trilogy) - "Day Watch" - "Twilight Watch"), already tipped into the champions of the Russian box office.

The first screening of "Night Watch" took place at the last Moscow Film Festival and received the most controversial reviews from critics. The plot of the film is somewhat different from that described in the book, which baffles the large army of fans of the trilogy.

"Night Watch" is the name of the organization that controls, together with the "Day Watch", the balance of dark and light forces. The staff of the "Night Watch" - all kinds of werewolves, ghouls and people endowed with the ability to distinguish vampires from mere mortals - are engaged in issuing "licenses to operate" to representatives of the forces of evil. One of the employees - Anton (Konstantin Khabensky) - finds himself in the center of a global cataclysm that threatens to disrupt the already shaky peace between Good and Evil.

In addition to Konstantin Khabensky, Gosha Kutsenko, Vladimir Menshov, Galina Tyunina, Ilya Lagutenko, Zhanna Friske and others are involved in the film. The filming took place in Moscow and St. Petersburg almost two years ago. The rest of the time the film crew worked on special effects, which are not inferior in scale to the best Western models (the film director insists that "the effects are no worse than those of The Lord of the Rings").

Sergei Lukyanenko himself, who is the author of the script, is delighted with the result. "Awesome film! I have 100 complaints against the director, and he sees it all himself. But the film has already taken place. Forgive me for the pathos, this is already a mark of a new era in our cinema. Now we won't have special effects for five kopecks and a cameraman. -brake. Now the cinema will be done differently … On the whole - a solid 4, if you measure "in general", by the standards of world science fiction cinema. And five with a plus, if you remember that we filmed it now."

Despite the increased secrecy in the process of editing the film, video pirates released a "cut copy" of the film for sale a week ago. True, with the missing first 17 minutes of soundtrack. By the end of the year, "Night Watch" with additional, not included in the "cinematic", 115-minute version, episodes will be shown on Channel One. The rights for the adaptation of the remaining two parts (the script for "Day Watch", co-written with Vladimir Vasiliev, is already ready) have already been bought by the TV company.