Heh… I found the english dub to be very cheesy so I can only imagine how bad the original version must have been.

But you are right – visually the movie is quite impressive, especially considering the small budget.

I started watching this film subtitled with a Russian friend, and he restarted it dubbed. He said that the dialogue was amazingly cheesy in Russian to the point of dragging you out of the story completely, and preferred the English dub. I thought it was a very pretty film, even though it was a bit of a stretch at points. Worth watching.

Yup, precisely. I started reading the book now, and it actually made some of the scenes in the movie make more sense. The book puts them in context and provides brief, but compelling explanations as to how things work and why things are happening one way or another.

In the movie shit just goes down with no rhyme or reason to it, and it ends up being a confusing, disjointed story. Just the fact that they removed almost all references to magic and spell casting and stripped Anton from all his powers just adds to the confusion. In the book he is not very powerful but can do basic stuff like Jedi mind tricks on people, light fire or freeze water and etc..

Also the twilight/gloom dimension is explained in more detail, and actually plays a much bigger role.

So if you read the book, the movie makes sense cause you already know the universe. Of course they messed with the story, characters and the setting (for example Anton’s boss is just a regional manager for Moscow – not the immortal king of the light side) but at least you know what is going on. If you didn’t read the book, you are lost. :P

And don’t tell me it doesn’t need to make sense because it’s “magical”. I don’t buy it. If you want me to suspend my disbelief, first give me a framework or a convention within which your universe works – then we can work from there.

Haven’t seen the film, but this is true – disbelief can be suspended quite readily so long as they stick to their own rules. As soon as anything isn’t even internally consistent it gives rise to awkward questions that jolt you out of the whole thing.