Normally, this would be a review of Night Watch

Sunday, October 24, 2010 6:24 PM By Simon

But as luck would have it, my DVD copy is dubbed. Fucking dubbed. And I can only switch the audio to French or Spanish.

I don't care about your international appeal, studios. Do not fucking dub your fucking movies.

8 comments:

SugaryCynic said...

aw, that sucks. I've been wanting to watch Night Watch for ages actually. Is your copy a Netflix copy? cuz then I know not to bother

October 24, 2010 at 7:24 PM
Simon said...

Sugary: No, it's a DVD. Though Netflix is probably dubbed too. I don't know, I'd have to check.

October 24, 2010 at 7:45 PM
Derek Armstrong said...

What I find particularly odd about this is that the subtitles in Night Watch are one of the best things about it. I don't know if you heard this, but the subtitles were designed to be living pictorial elements, sometimes spat out like a typewriter, sometimes shuddering with a noise in the soundtrack, sometimes turning into dust ... it was one of the most enjoyable things about watching the movie.

October 25, 2010 at 1:49 PM
Anonymous said...

Oh, god... this movie.

October 25, 2010 at 2:22 PM
Derek Armstrong said...

From wikipedia, if any of this helps you track it down:

The "international version" of the film debuted in the United Kingdom. In the prologue and epilogue, the Russian voice-over has been dubbed in English, but for the rest of the film features stylized subtitles appearing in odd places around the screen, often animated to emphasise or complement the action. For example, in a scene in which Yegor is being called by a Dark vampire, he is in a pool and the camera is underwater. The caption appears as blood red text that dissolves as blood would in water. In another scene, as a character walks across the scene from left to right, the caption is revealed as his body crosses the screen. In addition, many of the scenes that were present in the Russian theatrical release were omitted, while, at the same time, some scenes were re-cut or added. The International version is shorter by 10 minutes. Overall, it helped to make the film's plot clearer than it was in the original theatrical version, though many purists[who?] argue that the deletions subtract from the film. The DVD was released in the UK on April 24, 2006. The zone 4 DVD had the option of either a Russian or an English audiotrack. Subtitles were simply plain white text at the bottom of the screen. The International version of both Night Watch and its sequel, Day Watch, are now available in HD on Vudu. The HDX encodes are based on the International release and retain the original Russian dialog track with the stylized subtitles. The original Russian "Director's Cut" of the film was released, apart from Russia, in some European countries on DVD by 20th Century FOX. The only difference of this version from the original Russian version is the absence of the opening credits.

October 25, 2010 at 2:41 PM
Will said...

I rented it from Netflix a while back and it had both Russian and English dialogue. I was very interested in seeing the "artistic subtitles" as well, but all DVD versions unfortunately have the standard removable white subtitles only.

November 7, 2010 at 9:13 AM