An old Soviet-era joke from Yakov Smirnoff comes to mind:

Q. How many TV Channels are there in Soviet Russia?
A. Two. Channel 1 is Government Channel; Channel 2 is KGB Agent telling you to turn back to Channel 1!

This review is meant for those who watch Buffy The Vampire Slayer on a casual basis. Your jaw will drop when you watch how the Russians take the premise of “Good vs. Evil watched by the Watchers” (which was also done by Highlander) and interprets it somewhat differently. Night Watch (in Russian: Nochnoy Dozor/Ночной дозор) follows the main protagonist, Anton Gorodetsky (Konstantin Khabensky), as he chases down those of the Darkness who intend to break the truce between themselves and the Forces of Light, known as the Night Watch. During the daytime, control goes over to the Darkness, and is known as Day Watch (Dnevnoi Dozor/Дневно́й дозо́р). In the middle are the Others, who have special powers and have not yet declared themselves for one side or the other. The game is afoot for each side to convince these Others to join them.
In other words: Good and Evil police each other!
This is only the second Russian film I have ever watched. Ever. The first one was Alexander Nevsky, a Stalin-era propaganda masterpiece which prepared the Soviet People to get ready for the Germans. The early battle sequences are very reminiscent of that classic, and the Russian effort (financed by the state-owned Channel One) spares nothing when it comes to excruciating violence to advance the story, which is loosely based on the first of a trilogy of novels by Sergey Lukyanenko. The second movie is scheduled to be released in the USA sometime this year, and I can’t wait for it!
Night Watch is rated R for strong violence, disturbing images, and language; directed by Timur Bekmambetov, and is available on DVD. I wonder what Joss Whedon thinks of this film? My rating: 8.5