Le Pacte des Loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf)

This was quite better fare for the night than Dragon Fighter in that it delivered entertainment without us having to invent it. The big thing that struck me was the sheer ammount of style that went into this piece. It was beautiful to watch. The one warning I must make is that we rented this as a werewolf movie, and in some sense I still think of it as that. It's not. It's a great movie, and it is a monster movie, but it's not a werewolf movie. I don't think I'm ruining anything when I tell you that the monster isn't a werewolf. The word "werewolf" only appeared once in the subtitles. The Beast is, though, still wolf related. It may just be our narrow western viewpoint that autimatically equates wolf movies with werewolves. You actually get two movies when you watch this. You get the intensely stylish drama about human relationships in a time of crisis and how we cope with the strain of our environments, and you get a ten minute action movie inserted towards the end as a little interlude before returning to the meloncholy drama for the finale. It's one of those parts that tears you as a movie lover because it falls in line with the story, there is no deus ex machina or sudden course changes, but doens't fit in with the style. It's really only one fight scene, and the bone sword is cool, but I found it went from being fascinating to being entertaining. As far as movie crimes go, that's pretty low on the list of severity, but it does take this out of the "must own" category and stick it in the "good deal" category. Certainly worth watching.

Total: 49