Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Dmitry (A) on February 04, 2002 at 23:25:56

Le Pacte Des Loups ~ Brotherhood Of The Wolf, 2001 - France - 143 min. - Feature, Color.

The premise - a wolf-like creatrure torments and devours[literally] a French province in mid-18th. century. King Louis ....th sends Chevalier Gregoire de Fronsac to clean up the mess and catch the Beast, as it is locally known.
Not bad, right? Those who read Thyl Ulenspiegel would appreciate that, I thought. I thought wolves and all that Europen mystic stuff was going on mostly in the 10th-13th cent., but nevertheless, it should have beautiful cinematography, beautiful costumes, clever dialogue.
Anyway, Chevalier arrives at the ground zero, so to speak, soldiers try to kill the Beast, doesn't happen. Chevalier meets beautiful Marianne de Morangias, falls in love. He also meets her dark and one-handed brother Jean-Francois.
His faithful companion Mani, ar Iroqua Indian, whom he rescued from the hands of mongering colonists during his time in America is always at his side. Ever the Kung Fu master, he kicks major ass. So does the Beast!
King is p.o.ed that this "devil" isn't controlled, so he relieves Chevalier. But our tenacious hero is determined to make do! Constantly in danger, but always saved by the almost-mute and half-naked Mani, he sleeps with an expensive and mysterious Italian courtesan Sylvia, who offers him something that gives him a bad trip but he recovers. Meanwhile the Beast kills a boy and almost kills a little girl, but Mani the magician saves the girl's life and she tells of a huge wolf-like creature that is being supervised by a strange man. Hmm. Chevalier digs deeper into Sylvia and she tells him that the Beast serves a group of renegade Catholic priests that want to tell the King that if he cannot control one Devil, there will be many more. But who is the beast?!
Chevalier, Mani, and the Young Dude decide to put an end to the evil charade. Marianne promises to wait.
They set amazing traps to kill the Beast, sliding spiked doors, spiked catapults, those huge logs with spikes that swing from trees,like in the first King Kong movie, you know. Where does one find bamboo in the north of France in December? Meanwhile, Mani gives the Young Dude some psychodelic Indian mashrooms and the Young Dude trips. Anyway, Beast shows up, they wound it, but are wounded themselves. Chevalier attends to the Young Dude, while Mani goes after the Beast. He tracks it down deep under ground, in a huge maze of crosses, thousands of burning candles[like in that famous Police video] and screams. While he pets some Rottweilers, the evil forces creep up and Mani is eventually captured after an engrossing fight comme Bruce Lee, and fed to the wounded Beast. After his body is thrown down the hill[from a cave!!!] Chevalier recovers it and gives him a proper Iroqua burial, i.e. he wraps him up in a huge Indian rug and burns it, then cries on the ashes, collects them in a humidor-size box and goes on his way. He is now Mani!!! Half naked and in scars, he has full command of two medium sized swords. Young Dude is packing a cross-bow. Chevalier then makes a date with Marianne, and they meet in a secret hideway spot[more like a hunter's chalet], but the wounded Beast manages to rough up Marianne and takes out Chevalier. Chevalier is then taken into captivity by the masters of the Beast. In his cell he is visited by Sylvia, who gives him some acid and he drops dead-like. Before that though, she tells him of a secret society of anti-King big shots that encompasses pretty much everyone he met so far. Anyway, Chevalier is dead, and buried. Appear Marianne and her one-handed brother Jean-Francois. Marianne cries on the grave of her beloved. The one-handed brother Jean-Francois catches her in her bedroom and proposes his love to her. She vehemently denies the mixing of the blood, but he has his way over the exhausted and weak Marianne. Not only that but the one-handed brother Jean-Francois in reality has both hands, one of which is always hidden in a specially-designed corset.
There's more!!!
Sylvia the whore digs up the Chevalier and revives him. Remember, he's in the acid-coma!!! She then sets him free, because she is a spy for the Pope and her goal is to eradicate the Beast-sporting renegade priests. Chevalier kicks ass in a rotunda! Soldiers show up and bust all the participants of the secret meeting[easy to spot, they've wearing red capes and masks, sort of like the participants of the anti-World Trade march], except for the formerly one-handed brother Jean-Francois. Chevalier locates brother Jean-Francois and kills him after an enduring battle. Before dying, brother Jean-Francois tells Chevalier that Marianne is dead too.
Chevalier rushes to her site. She is indeed, how they like to say in France, morte. Not all is lost, though, for Chevalier cracks open a bracelet that was left to him after Mani's death, and after producing some smoke-like affect, revives Marianne!!!
All is well. The Beast is some animal brother Jean-Francois brought from Africa and trained to be his killer-zombie. I think it's a lion, but I'm noit sure, because it's clad into some kind of papier-macher armor and it's hard to tell. I think it's a lion. Anyway, the Beast is shot dead, Marianne and Chevalier go to America on a ship, scatter Mani's ashes over sea, and the guy who tells the whole story turns out to be the Old Dude who used to be the Young Dude. It happened many years ago, you see. Old Dude finishes writing the story and descends down the stairs of his chateau, where he is accosted by a mob of torch-bearing peasants with rakes. They take him away. French revolution is going on!
I kid you not!
What was it that I hated most about this movie? The idiotic script that ceases to be 40 minutes into the 2.5hr-long film, the Kung Fu fighting, the fact that Mani has one large tatoo that covers either the left or the right side of his torso, depending on the scene? Why do all these village dwellers go into the woods if they know that there is a fucking Beast there that rips people apart almost nightly? And why do all of them have to sing when they go through those woods?
Mani, Mani, give me back my money!
As they say in good old France, merde!