Brotherhood of the Wolf (2002)

i must have seen a different film!!

Excellent but underrated film

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Brotherhood Of The Wolf has a lot to offer cinema lovers in the way of entertainment, but I digress this is a very cerebral film as well. There is excellent cinematography and atmosphere,suspense and intrigue, intense eroticism, mystery, terror and superb action and martial arts fight choreography. The performances are superb with a lead that resembles HHH, European love goddess Monica Bellucci and the much underrated B action star Mark Dacascos (who shines in the support role in this). Brotherhood Of The Wolf blends genres quite successfully in this period action hybrid film and is a very unique and well made film that is very visceral, but also will thrill the more intellectual, thinking viewers as well. Director Christopher Gans did a very good job putting this all together and this is a very original movie that should please fans of action, horror, suspense, as well as appeal to the art-house crowd as well. Overall, Brotherhood Of The Wolf is a very impressive film.

----LE PACTE DES LOUPS--- or-- --The Brotherhood of the Wolf--- or -------El Pacto de los Lobos---- ---title in French, English and Spanish, respectively)....IS (IMO) ONE OF THE MOST ORIGINAL MOVIES IN MODERN CINEMA!!!!!!!LE PACTE DES LOUPS is a very entertaining movie at the beginning and a film that invites a lot to reflection and afterthought in its middle and final parts. It also has very nice scenarios, both natural and man-made. It keeps us most of the time wondering about the outcome of the three parts that (IMO) constitute the central plot: the story of the characters, the story of the hunting of "The Beast of Gévaudan" and the history of La France and Europe as a whole during those years, corrupt monarchies and controlling church included.Scenography is very good and really makes us dream about the "époque" the film talks about, with all its good and bad (and sometimes very very bad) things. We also had some very decent scenes of action and an overall feeling of being experiencing things very close to they way they should have been in France during the seventeen hundred and something. An eclectic mix of drama, terror, eroticism, martial arts and both historical and detective novels that I found completely enjoyable, thrilling and satisfying!!!!!!!One of the most interesting things, I guess, is reading in the IMBb Trivia Facts about the real existence of a "Beast of Gévaudan" during the XVIII Century, same as most of the main characters depicted by the movie, even when we know that a lot of it'd have been novelized, knowing that virtually all the elements in the movie have at least some historical background is impressive, to say the least.Thanks for readingIMDb Review written by David del Real. México City. México. November 2017.

Brotherhood Of The Wolf is the kind of film that has juuust a bit too much packed into its two plus hour running time to be an instant classic, but at the same time I can't help but say to me it's a personal favourite. It's tailored towards my love of grisly adventure, comic book style frames and wilderness set action mayhem. It's based on the allegedly real 'beast of gevaudan', a massive carnivorous monster that terrorized rural France during the 1700's. That historical event is built upon to create a mythic, larger than life cinematic whirlwind that resembles The Ghost & The Darkness, mixed with The Last Of The Mohicans with a touch of occult intrigue. Samuel Le Bohan plays a womanizing french debonair who takes it upon himself to hunt the creature, and the impressively athletic action star Marc Dacoscas plays his native companion Mani. Together they scour the misty french wildlands and shady, vaguely corrupt small town aristocracy, searching for clues as to the creatures origin. It's a curious film, one that transcends the genres a bit too much, but at the same time in a fun way that finds you never correctly guessing where the film might take you. It's part Sleepy Hollow, part B Movie and part decadent soft core porno in the vein of caligula, and is certainly never boring. It's great strength is in set design, and especially cinematography. There are a whole bunch of shots that are so lush, so gorgeous that they seem almost like an exquisite oil painting. The creature is kept wisely out of sight for most of the film but it's eventual appearance is shocking, and shows how much work went into the effects. It's almost a perfect film, with a bit of editing out the unnecessary bits (that DTV lookin melodramatic orgys gotta go, man), it could be truly something special. But nevertheless it's still a rip roaring, atmospheric action horror silver bullet of a film that deserves praise for its undeniable imagination and creativity.

It is naturally more sensual and authentic than its US counterparts, but I still have mixed feelings about this film. Most of actors are fine (especially Kassel, Dacascos and Bertolucci), tensions are high at times, but the script is too uneven, the Animal badly inserted (technically) and the ending is long and awkward. To me, the fight scenes do not fit in the medieval French village life, but I am sure they added (younger) viewers within and out of France (after all, Dacascos comes from Hollywood and is good at martial arts). Besides, the film could have been shorter, not some 2h 20 min.But Le Pacte des Loups is definitely for you if you wish to experience sublime feelings, pretty costumes and history mixed with mystic. But evil is often related to man...