Day Watch /Dnevnoy dozor

Russian Cooler
Review by Vives Anunciacion
Inquirer Libre September 7, 2007

Directed by Timur Bekmambetov
Based on the novels by Sergei Lukyanenko and Vladimir Vasiliev
R13/ 132minutes
Fox Searchlight/ Channel One
Dubbed in English

Can the forces of darkness prevail over the forces of light? Can Russian filmmakers make a horror fantasy movie as gritty and stylized as Hollywood can make them? Can you say Timur Bekmambetov faster than you can say Wachowski Brothers?

Day Watch (Dnevnoy Dozor) is the second part of the Russian mega-hit horror-fantasy series ala The Matrix and Underworld beginning with Night Watch (Nochnoy Dozor).

In the series, the supernatural forces of the world known as the Others are divided between light and darkness, and an ancient truce guards the balance between the two. To preserve the truce, the Light Others conduct the Night Watch while the Dark Others conduct the Day Watch so neither side tips the balance. An inquisition set up by both sides punishes those who break the truce.

A prophecy predicts the emergence of a Great Other who can tip the balance to its favor, except that its very emergence would plunge the world into another supernatural war.

Night Watch followed the story of Anton (Konstantin Khabensky) who sought the aid of a witch to kill his wife’s unborn child which he suspected was not his. Twelve years after, Anton has become a Night Watchman and the child has grown into the boy Yegor (Dyma Martynov), who shows signs of being the Great Other. At the end of Night Watch, Yegor learns that his father Anton tried to have him aborted, and Yegor takes the Dark side to spite his father.

In Day Watch, Anton is secretly covering up Yegor’s attacks on normal people, a violation of the truce, leaving the Night Watch unable to prosecute Yegor. Realizing that Anton is the only person who can influence Yegor to convert to the Light side, the Day Watch led by Zavulon (Viktor Verzhbitsky) makes several attempts at framing Anton for the murder of several Dark Others.

Their last attempt succeeds, despite the efforts by Light side leader Geser (Vladimir Menshov) to hide Anton in the body of Light side sorceress Olga (Galina Tyunina). Anton’s redemption rests on the posession of the Chalk of Fate, a legendary magical chalk that can rewrite history.

On Yegor’s 13th birthday, Anton loses the Chalk to Zavulon’s minions, Zavulon poisons him and Yegor unleashes his powers battling the Light side’s Great Other, Svetlana (Mariya Poroshina), destroying Moscow in the process.

Day Watch has the feel of a live-action modern gothic graphic novel, depicting the dim, cold streets of post-Cold War Moscow intermittently lit by the glowing neon lights of its newfound wealth. With so many characters and diverse motivations involved, Day Watch is more busy pushing effects-driven action than ironing out its encyclopedic narrative. Then again, that is always the challenge with adaptations. Once it gets there, though, the action really kicks in.

Stripped of its Russian identity, Day Watch is your typical big-budget summer blockbuster that’s all spectacle and little emotion. Lengthy, dizzying, fast and fantastically silly, Day Watch is a strong Russian statement that Hollywood doesn’t rule the cinematic world. That’s why it’s interesting that Hollywood is financing the third part, Dusk Watch (Sumerechniy Dozor).

Let’s do some math. Day Watch was made with a budget of $4.2 million (approx Php195 million in our money) and earned more than $31 million in Russia alone – at 25 rubles to a dollar, that’s more than RR790 million in their money.

For once the Ruskies rule the day.