I thought the only difference on the different sides of the DVD was the 5.1 track. I watched the Russian 5.1 track with the custom subs.

Are you saying the other side had the unrated cut with normal subs and the English dub 5.1 track?

How's the quality on these discs? Worth getting if you're a fan with the DVDs already?

It's been a while since I watched the regular DVDs, but I watched both Blu-rays tonight and though they both looked pretty great.

Yes, I believe the longer cut is the original Russian edit and it does not have the cool subs, just standard player-generated subs.

For me the biggest reason to upgrade is for a Russian audio track that isn't messed up. The Russian 5.1 track on the original dual-sided DVD for Night Watch had frequent crackling coming from one the mains throughout the film. I thought my speaker was messed up, but the crackling was there no matter how quiet the volume was. After re-securing all the wiring and still having an issue, I went online and found others were posting about the same issue. It was not present on the English dub track on the other side.

I'm confused about "Night Watch". I know that the DVD had different versions on each side. I thought the dual layer side had English audio only. I assumed it was the shorter cut. The single layer other side had Russian audio and the cool subtitles.

So, on the original DVD, which was the Russian theatrical cut? Which was the longer cut? Which cut has the commentary? And which cut made it to Blu-ray?

On the original DVD, there are two cuts. One side had the American cut, which had the burned-in animated subtitles. You could watch this in English or Russian. The other had the Russian cut, which only had a Russian audio track, and player generated subtitles. This is the version on the Blu-ray.

Not exactly. The Blu-ray is 114-minute international cut with the opening voiceover dubbed into English. It matches exactly the IMDb description of the American cut.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0403358/alternateversions

It has only player-generated subtitles.

The Russian theatrical cut was 10 minutes longer, I believe.

Really? That bugs the hell out of me. I presumed the reason we didn't get the awesome burned in subs and the reason it said unrated was because it was the Russian cut. Fucking Fox.

Day Watch "Unrated" is the longer Russian theatrical cut, but not Night Watch. I assume that Fox slapped an "Unrated" label on Night Watch only as a marketing ploy to tie in with the sequel. As near as I can tell, it's the same cut available on DVD, but without the cool subtitles.

You mentioned earlier that, "On the original DVD, there are two cuts. One side had the American cut, which had the burned-in animated subtitles. The other had the Russian cut." Is that true of the Region 1 DVD? I thought that was only the case in Region 2. None of the DVD reviews for Night Watch I looked up mentioned having both cuts in Region 1.

It's been so long since I watched Night Watch on DVD, I'd have to go back and double check. I'm not sure I even own it anymore.

Yeah, it's true in R1, although both versions I purchased were ex-rentals. Still, I would be surprised if the rental version contained more than the retail release without some sort of trumpeting of this fact on the cover.

It's actually a little weird, but "Night Watch" and "Day Watch" the films are actually parts 1 and 2 (with some minor changes) from the book "Night Watch" (kinda like a 3-novella novel) - nothing from "Day Watch" the book has actually been filmed yet (same book format), and I haven't actually read "Twilight Watch" yet. "Day Watch" the book does carry over everything from the first book, but with the introduction of new characters and different perspectives and opinions from the narrators (being that they're mostly members of the Day Watch - although Anton still has some chapters as the narrator/main character as well).