Release Date:
01/11/2002
Leave it to the French to make even their action films long, ponderous, and pretentious. The Brotherhood of the Wolf finally answers the question, “What would happen if a period film was gang-banged by Hammer studios and several Hong Kong action choreographers?”
Brotherhood (based, as we’re told, on a true story) is about a town in the French countryside terrorized by a mysterious monster. Hope arrives in the form of a dashing swordsman and his Native American kung fu sidekick (you read that right). It starts out as a moody and effective mystery, but quickly loses its way in the long and plodding plot—one minute it’s Merchant-Ivory, the next it’s the worst of the Highlander series. If the director didn’t have the common decency to include the jaw-droppingly gorgeous Monica Belluci completely naked, we’d have lost interest early on. Apparently, however, this movie was huge in France, just narrowly knocking The Geisha Boy out of the No. 1 spot.
Brotherhood (based, as we’re told, on a true story) is about a town in the French countryside terrorized by a mysterious monster. Hope arrives in the form of a dashing swordsman and his Native American kung fu sidekick (you read that right). It starts out as a moody and effective mystery, but quickly loses its way in the long and plodding plot—one minute it’s Merchant-Ivory, the next it’s the worst of the Highlander series. If the director didn’t have the common decency to include the jaw-droppingly gorgeous Monica Belluci completely naked, we’d have lost interest early on. Apparently, however, this movie was huge in France, just narrowly knocking The Geisha Boy out of the No. 1 spot.