(Reviewed by Snake-666) - Highly recommended mix of horror, martial arts, drama, comedy & romance.  This is one of the greatest films I have seen in my life. It is far more than a horror movie, far more than a martial arts movie, far more than a drama film....in fact it is impossible to place this film in any one genre.

The film is based on the beast of Gevaudan legend from the 18th Century. Set in 1764 'Brotherhood of the Wolf' follows the story of Chevalier Gregoire de Fronsac, a soldier dispatched by the King of France to hunt down and capture the beast that has killed over 100 people with the aid of Fronsac's Native American friend Mani.

During their time attempting to capture the beast they meet many interesting members of the French higher classes including Marianna de Morangias, the beautiful daughter of Count de Morangias, and Marianna's brother Jean-Francois, a keen hunter who lost his arm in Africa. They also stop by a local brothel where Fronsac meets Sylvia, a prostitute who seems to have a better idea of Fronsac's path and future than he does himself.

I watched this film with English dubbing on as the soundtrack is in French, and this allowed me to see more of the absolutely stunning visuals and startling imagery than had I turned on subtitles. There are some amazing and beautiful shots of the French countryside and French architecture, with some truly brilliant camerawork and direction. There are many moments reminiscent of the style of the Matrix, some quick shifts from slow motion and out again, and some good freeze-frame moments add to the whole visual energy of the film. The flowing camera shots sweeping across snowy hill tops or just across the French countryside were also a huge credit to the film.

The only image I didn't really like was the CGI 'wolf'. There were moments when the CGI wolf was on screen and it was so obviously a computer generated image. However, like with Dog Soldiers, this was rather a minor problem to me considering what the rest of the film was like.

The film can be a little abstract or confusing in some places, although most questions were answered by the end of the film. I knew that every character fitted in somewhere, but working out where can be a challenge. There were also quite a few plot twists that destroyed previous assumptions made, although two of the twists which I think were supposed to be hard to spot were shown coming. But there were still times when things didn't play out the way that I imagined, and these led to some truly touching and emotional moments in the film. No horror film has ever made me 'feel' for the characters, but this one did, and when tragedy does strike in the film, it feels like a tragedy.

Another great part of this films were the extremely dramatic and exciting fight sequences. There were some awesome displays of martial arts and weapon skills from the characters of Mani and Fronsac (though I am assuming stunt doubles were used in many of the scenes) that were extremely well choreographed and very gripping. There were four or five excellent fighting scenes that were just adrenaline rushing excitement and must be seen.

The amount of scary moments could be criticised, but like I say, this film is not strictly a horror. There are certainly some dark and tense moments in the film, which the almost perfect soundtrack helps to create beautifully. There's nothing 'SYP' scary but there are some quite edgy and haunting moments, which once again the tremendous visuals of the film can be credited for, as well as the very good direction and haunting soundtrack.

I've heard some complaints that the film goes on for too long, but I think not. The version I watched went on for two hours and five minutes (despite the two hours seventeen minutes it estimated on the DVD case) and as I know of an extended version I will be doing my best to hunt that down (PAL Timing). I think that some of the film was there just to show off some visual effects but all in all I'd say that 'Brotherhood of the Wolf' justifies it's long running time.

To sum up I'd say if you haven't yet seen 'Brotherhood of the Wolf' see it, it's not a werewolf movie, but it still a very good movie...even if it is not strictly in any one particular genre. I'd recommend it to anyone, even people who aren't fans of foreign-language films.