MORE ON “NOCHNOI DOZOR”: Maureen, the Suburban Banshee (I’m getting a kind of Siouxsie Sioux meets Harry Potter vibe there), writes in re the movie discussed here:

You wrote: “sounds interesting…”

It is. And I’m sorry I didn’t give a real good description of how much fun it is, as well as being serious. Nothing like a magic truck speeding through the streets of Moscow!

The original book is really good, too, at least as far as I’ve gotten. Man, if I had just paid more attention in Russian class…or if we’d had science fiction and fantasy to read for class…sigh.

I do find it amusing that the original book cover shows this scene in a way which emphasizes its high fantasy aspects, while the movie portrayed it in as noir a way as it could get away with. (Big emphasis on the TV antennas everywhere on that apartment house roof, for example, and the shapeshifters were shown in human shape, possibly for budget reasons.)

But they both work for me.http://www.rusf.ru/lukian/konkurs/1998pict/anry04.jpg

If you can get to a store that carries Russian import DVDs, you can buy your own copy of Nochnoi Dozor (with pretty reasonable English subtitles, really. Better than Taiwan DVDs do.) I don’t live in aRussian-heavy area, so I gave up and ordered it through www.russiandvd.com. Apparently there are even cheaper places out there.

Also, Fox Searchlight is going to be distributing Nochnoi Dozor and its immediate sequel Dnevnoi Dozor (coming out in January) to theaters in the US, and then will be co-producing the third one.