Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001)

The director's cut of Christophe Gans' visually stunning, bodice-ripping, action-packed period genre piece gets a brand new 4K restoration and a release on UHD, Blu-ray, DVD and downloads formats from Studio Canal.

1764. Something is killing people in the French province of Gevauden. Naturalist Grégoire de Fronsac (Samuel Le Buhan) and his Iroquois companion Mani (Mark Dacascos, best known now for JOHN WICK 3) are despatched by King Louis XV to capture the creature and bring it back to Paris for dissection. During their investigations they encounter a number of colourful characters including Jean-Francois de Morangais (Vincent Cassel) whose right arm was mangled by a lion, and Italian courtesan Sylvia (Mominca Bellucci) who works at the local brothel but might be more than she seems. As the body count rises it starts to become less clear as to what might actually be committing the killings and before they know it Grégoire and Mani find themselves involved in a secret and bloody conflict between church and state.

Christophe Gans is best known to mainstream audiences for directing the movie version of the video game SILENT HILL (2006). He was also responsible for the outstanding first segment (The Drowned) of the Brian Yuzna-produced Lovecraft anthology horror film NECRONOMICON (1993). Both of those movies exhibit a considerable degree of his directorial panache but it's BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF that's the real standout in his filmography and whose deserved success should have led to a full-fledged renaissance of French genre cinema. Sadly it didn't, but at least we still have this, a film which looked gorgeous on its original cinema release and looks fantastic in its 4K restoration.

Studio Canal's DVD offers the restored cut of the film plus two commentaries, one from Gans and the other from stars Cassel and Le Bihan. On Blu-ray you get a two disc set  - disc one content the same as the DVD, disc two containing two 78 minute making of features (ie just over two and half hours in all) plus a brand new interview with Gans that runs nearly 90 minutes. You also get ten minutes of scenes deleted from the theatrical cut and two trailers. The UHD release consists of 4 discs with the same content as the Blu-rays plus the original theatrical cut, another Gans interview and eight more featurettes not provided for review.

Christophe Gans BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF is out on UHD, Blu-ray and DVD from Studio Canal on Monday 15th May 2023