Day Watch (2006) - Foreign Film Friday

Number Rolled: 50

Movie Name/Year: Day Watch (2006)

Tagline: First film of the year.

Genre: Action, Fantasy, Thriller

Length: 131 minutes

Rating: R

Production Companies: Bazelevs Production, Channel One Russia, TABBAK

Producer: Natela Abuladze, Varvara Avdyushko, Alexey Borisov, Konstantin Ernst, Adam F. Goldberg, Aleksey Kublitskiy, Anatoliy Maksimov, Iva Stromilova, Evgeny Telegin, Mara Tuleutayeva

Director: Timur Bekmambetov

Writer: Timur Bekmambetov, Sergey Lukyanenko, Alexander Talal, Vladimir Vasiliev

Actors: Konstantin Khabenskiy, Mariya Poroshina, Vladimir Menshov, Galina Tyunina, Viktor Verzhbitskiy, Zhanna Friske, Dmitriy Martynov, Valeriy Zolotukhin, Aleksey Chadov, Nurzhuman Ikhtymbaev, Aleksey Maklakov, Aleksandr Samoylenko, Yuriy Kutsenko, Irina Yakovleva, Georgiy Dronov, Nikolay Olyalin, Rimma Markova, Anna Slyu, Igor Lifanov, Sergey Trofimov, Mariya Mironova

Stunt Doubles: Igor Tsay

Blurb from Netflix: To protect his son, who has come under the dark side’s control, Anton seeks an artifact that threatens to upset an uneasy peace with the light side.

Selina’s Point of View:

I enjoyed Night Watch (2004) when I saw it. However, I enjoyed it more over time. It turned out to be an incredibly memorable movie, more-so than I thought it would be. As a result, I’ve been looking forward to the second part, Day Watch, for a long time.

Normally, if I want to see a film that badly and the dice aren’t rolling it, I’ll give in and watch after a few weeks. The issue was that Netflix only seemed to have Day Watch available for a limited amount of time each time it appeared in the options. I always missed it. Finally, both films are available and I’m thrilled we rolled it.

The best advice I can offer here is that you go and watch it before Netflix removes them again. As of now, there’s no expiration date listed for either of them… but if the past has told me anything, in a few months they’ll disappear for a while, or one at a time will.

Onto the movie.

I loved Day Watch. Even more than the first part.

First, the film was visually gorgeous. Night Watch was too, but this one was even more-so. The captions were interactive with the film as well, which made even them interesting and beautiful. In fact, even if you speak Russian, watch with the subtitles on. It adds to the experience.

I found no flaw in Day Watch. It was a two-hour foreign movie that I could have stuck around to watch another hour of. That is not a thing that happens very often. It just didn’t feel like work. I almost forgot I was reading along. I feel like I can hear the voices of the actors speaking in English in my mind.

I don’t often re-watch foreign films, but I re-watched Night Watch earlier, and I foresee myself doing the same with this second part.

Cat’s Point of View:

I had delved into Night Watch (2004) a while back as a bit of ‘homework,’ since Selina had already reviewed it and the sequel was available on Netflix. I’m glad I had watched it first – it made Day Watch make so much more sense.

You could probably watch this sequel as a stand-alone, since there is a decent summary at the beginning that brings you up to speed for the most part; and there’s enough to pick up on as you continue through. 

Watching both movies in order, however, would give a far richer experience.

So, here’s something you’re probably not going to hear from me often – even though they were mostly white against the movie, the subtitles didn’t annoy me. This is the first film I can think of that used the subtitles to highlight parts of a scene. They moved and even changed colors on occasion. I thought that the treatment was engaging and I give kudos to whomever came up with that concept.

There were a couple things that were staples of the first film that didn’t seem to make it into the sequel. Mostly, it centers on the main character, Anton. If the elements of his ability were actually present, then it was subtler this time around.

All in all, I liked the movie and actually plan to watch it again, back-to-back. The Russian language is so interesting to listen to, as well. If you enjoy stories of the supernatural that are just a bit outside of the standard recipe box, then I’d definitely recommend you check this out.

Languages

Speech Available: Russian

Subtitles Available: English

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – 64%

Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 68%

Metascore - 59/100

Metacritic User Score – 6.7/10

IMDB Score – 6.5/10

Trust the Dice: Selina’s Rating – 5/5

Trust the Dice: Cat’s Rating – 4/5

P.S. Some character interaction during the start of the credits.

Movie Trailer: