Directed by:  Christophe Gans
Written by:  Stéphane Cabel, Christophe Gans
Starring:  Samuel Le Bihan, Mark Dacascos, Vincent Cassel, Emilie Dequenne, Jeremie Renier

January 16, 2002

         Since The Matrix, everybody and their mother, including the French, want to prosper on the success of kung-fu action films.  Ang Lee gave us the most memorizing fight scenes set against a powerful moving story with his Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.  The Musketeer tried it last year in the kung-fu retelling of The Three Musketeers.  And now the French step in for their piece of the pie in a film that’s being wrongly advertised as a kung-fu horror werewolf movie.
         There are only two fight scenes in Brotherhood of the Wolf that consist of kung-fu fighting.  These scenes are at best poorly choreographed, and really just horribly directed.  Christophe Gans insists on using slow motion to no end, and the smooth realistic fighting seen in films like Crouching Tiger and even some scenes in The Matrix are non existent.  Instead the fight scenes are like watching heavyweights in a boxing match where you can see every punch coming. Brotherhood of the Wolf is no more a kung-fu movie than it is a werewolf flick.
         The storyline takes after a true story of a beast on the French countryside that killed innocent people, but then vanished mysteriously.  The film’s story begins with potential when Fronsac and his Indian kung-fu fighting buddy Mani ride into town to hunt down the wolf-like creature.  The initial thrill quickly evaporates as the story unfolds into conspiracy filled nonsense.
         Much like the Hughes Brothers took the true story of the Jack the Ripper killings and made up a hokey who done it conspiracy in From Hell, Gans does the same with Brotherhood, involving some bible thumping Christians and even the King himself.  The special effects for “the beast” are terrible, reminiscent of the Rick Moranis chasing demon from Ghostbusters. 
          Brotherhood of the Wolf plays like one of the fairy tale stories out of Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves, which was a cheesy grotesque adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood back in the mid-80’s.  While some of the action scenes are entertaining, they are undermined by the special effects and screenplay.  You know a film is bad when the opening shots include quick camera pans over landscape and a ridiculous opening death sequence. 
 

Recommended Alternatives:  Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; The Matrix; Wolf

-Reviewed in Theater-