Toronto After Dark 2007: Wolfhound review
[I've had to catch up today with a lot of TAD follow up. You'll forgive me if I steal Todd's movie description from the TAD site] The sole survivor of the Gray Dog clan, the warrior Wolfhound lives for revenge. Nursed back to strength by a mystical druid after escaping a life of slavery in cruel mountain mines, he has spent years pursuing the villains who murdered his family before his very eyes during childhood. Now a paid mercenary, the fierce fighter is swept up into a battle to stop an evil sorcerer from freeing an ancient god of destruction accompanied only by a blind healer, a young scholar, and a beautiful slave.
Based on Mariya Semyonova’s novel there is nothing wrong with the story or the plot. It is as sweeping tale of heroism and valor as you would expect from this type of genre film, hearkening back to the day of the Conan and Beastmaster films of the 80s. But some times it seemed a bit episodic, like it was a collection of mini episodes of valor, as if Lebedev thought he still had to prove Wolfhound was a good guy. You know, just in case you forgot. So yes, it does meander about a bit diverting from the story to needless episodes, picking up what are really irrelevant characters to the plot and its motivation. It took long enough to really get going and I honestly thought the crowd was lost until they laughed at a comedic moment in the film. And that moment took a long time to come so I was fearful at first.
The Art Direction by Marat Kim is top notch. Everything looks authentic and fantastic. Even the fantasy elements have enough of a real feel to them that they don’t feel out of place in this world and yet stand outside of it in the realm of fantasy. The rustic kingdom of Galriad is the pinnacle of the Art Direction Team’s efforts and Lebedev makes the most of this environment by incorporating sweeping camera movements and birds-eye crane shots. It would be interesting to know if any of the costume or production design elements were rooted in Traditional Russian styles. Even the sword master, Gustáv Kyselica, should be credited for using swords that look simple, unpolished and real, instead of going for costume swords adorned with precious jewels and gold leaf. Even simple things like that keep this fantasy story anchored in a real world and helps keep the two at distance allowing the fantastic to be so without being overwhelming and over the top.
Where the director Nikolai Lebedev failed miserably in Wolfhound is when it came to the action. This is easily the most wretched aspect of the entire film. A sword and sorcery film that has action scenes that blow this much is criminal. Either Lebedev or his editor needs to be taken around back of the studio and flogged mercilessly with a wet noodle for this atrocity. This is how they played out the action; Wolfhound swings, cut, bad guy falls, cut, Wolfhound swings, I think, cut, another bad guy falls, I think. Throw out all cohesiveness and your ability to discern movement on screen because you’re going to have a hell of time trying to figure out what the hell is going on, on the screen, during the action sequences. What a failure to shoot a beautiful movie and then cock it up with brutal action sequences.
And because Lebedev failed to win me over with his shoddy action direction he failed to win me over completely on this film. It is a good film but could never be a great film because he cocked up one of the most important aspects of the sword and sorcery genre. The fighting. And when you mess that up then all you have is a bunch of people walking around in the hills, valleys and mountains. The hero isn’t really the hero because you don’t really see him do anything. It’s alluded to and suggested by the collection of images meant to represent the action scene but in the end it’s just a movie about a really big guy swinging a sword around his head and a bunch of guys fall down afterwards. Probably they slipped on a banana peel. We may never know.
A special shout out goes to Ragged Wing the sidekick bat, proving once again that the best animal sidekicks are small furry mammels.
