Night Watch is a 2004 Russian fantasy action thriller film by the Kazakhstan-born film director Timur Bekmambetov. It is loosely based on the novel The Night Watch, and is the first part of a trilogy, followed by Day Watch and ending with the 2009 release of Twilight Watch.
In the prologue, which is set in medieval times, humans with extra powers are called Others. The Others are proponents of either light or dark and confront each other to do battle. Geser, lord of light, realizes that the two forces are evenly matched and both will be destroyed. In parley with Zavulon, general of dark, the two agree to a truce in which the light will form a Night Watch and the dark a Day Watch to maintain the balance before the coming of the Great One who will choose either Light or Dark and thereby bring one to prominence.
In modern Russia, when his wife leaves him for another man, Anton goes to see an old woman who he believes will be able to bring her back. This woman tells him that his wife is pregnant by the other man and the fetus must be aborted or she will return to the other man. Anton accepts responsibility for this. The old woman prepares a drink involving Anton’s blood which he drinks. The shot cuts to his wife telling the other man they have to split up. The old woman starts to cite an incantation to abort the fetus, and Anton’s wife on a distant boat collapses and clutches at her womb but just as the incantation is about to be complete, two figures become visible in the room, and a third appears at the door, who shapeshifts into a tiger, and restrains the old woman. They express surprise when Anton sees them and note that he must be an “other”.
Twelve years later, Anton has become a member of the nightwatch along with the three figures. At Anton’s request, Kostya, his neighbor, takes him to his father, a butcher, to procure blood for Anton to drink. The father does so reluctantly and notes after Anton leaves that the Night Watch only drink blood when they are hunting a vampire.
A twelve-year-old boy, Yegor, is hearing a psychic call by a vampire who intends to feed. Anton tracks Yegor, being able to hear the call as he nears Yegor. On the way he sees a blond woman with her hair flying about even though she is inside a subway train with no airflow.
Two vampires are about to feed on Yegor when Anton arrives, and he is attacked by the male vampire, whom Anton can see only in a mirror. Anton wounds the female vampire, who hides. The other members of the Night Watch arrive and turn on special lights on their truck. Anton then picks up a mirror shard and directs the light from the truck towards the male vampire’s chest, destroying him. A member of the Day Watch arrives and reveals that the daywatch are aware of the “murder” of one of their dark ones.
Anton is healed by Geser who notes that he could have solved things more easily by entering into a shadow world called the Gloom. He reveals a legend about a virgin who was cursed and people and animals around her died or sickened, she was accompanied by a vortex of damnation. Either this virgin who has been reborn must die or they must find who cursed her. Geser gives Anton an assistant called Olga in the shape of a stuffed owl. Anton refuses and laughs until he sees Geser throw it out the window, whereupon it turns into a living owl that flies away.
At Anton’s apartment, the owl arrives and shapeshifts into a woman. Kostya arrives and says he knows that Anton killed the vampire Dark Other. Anton and Olga track Yegor to his home where they must enter the Gloom as Yegor is there hiding from the female vampire. The Gloom almost takes Yegor, but a blood sacrifice from Anton distracts it enough for them to escape. Emerging from the Gloom, Anton sees a photo of Yegor and his mother, Anton’s wife of twelve years ago. Night Watch members Tiger and Bear arrive to protect Yegor but they start kissing and the boy follows the call of the female vampire.
Anton and Olga go to a command and control centre set up near the apartment of the woman, Svetlana, from the subway train. A vortex is over her apartment and bad things have been happening to those near her. There is a flashback to twelve years prior where Anton recalls hearing the nightwatch that rescued him from Daria, that she had lied to him and the boy was his son. Anton enters Svetlana’s apartment and talks with her, whereby it is revealed that she cursed herself, meaning she is an Other. This revealed, the curse ends and the vortex disappears.
Yegor escapes the grips of the female vampire after Zavulon enters the roof and tries to save Anton’s life. Here Anton tries to kill Yegor, Zavulon’s assistant reads Anton’s personal file aloud and hearing that Anton tried to kill him as a fetus, Yegor willingly turns to the Dark, much to the dismay of Anton.
