User reviews

It's honestly pretty good, but Netflix is rewriting some of the witcher lore and as a long time game and book fan it's just kinda sad.

Sick action, Great animation, Entertaining, Great Soundtrack, And Interesting Characters but weren't fleshed out enough, in fact it felt like there were big gaps in between the story and the story was not fleshed out nearly as much as it should have been which is why this would have worked a lot better as a series, they pretty much crammed an entire season into one movie, which took away the impact from a lot of the scenes and the story in general. Overall enjoyable and entertaining but could have been better.

New monsters are rising in the woods after Witchers had mostly cleared them. Vesemir is a Witcher for hire. Accusation arises that Witchers are the ones creating the monsters as a scheme to rebuild their work for hire.

This is an animated prequel expansion of the world of The Witcher series. It's a good story. The characters are compelling. The old school animation is alright. The Korean studio does a lot of American TV work and it has a good handle on it. This is well made.

This film put a smile on my face. To say it in advance: I know the franchise from the game. Afterwards, I watched the series and now this movie.

The atmosphere is fantastic. I immediately felt transported back to the times when I first played the game.

Of course, this is not a game adaptation but a book adaptation. But no one can tell me that the creators of the series and the movie weren't inspired by the music and scenery you see in the game.

The movie feels like a longer main quest with a wonderful story. I'm lying here in bed with a heavy cold and fever - this is the perfect movie for a cozy feeling.

As I said, I realize that the series is based on the books. I have not read them and am writing this review from my perspective as someone who knows the franchise from the game.

It's nothing extremely good. But it met my expectations. It doesn't rely too much on the main show but still is enough connected to the lore to have a reason to exist. Vesemir is a great character too. The fight scenes are great. The animation is beautiful. The story is interesting. Overall, it's a great movie Can't wait to see the live action Vesemir in December!

Disclaimer- have read the books and played the games

As a stand-alone film,it's actually pretty decent,which I was not expecting. Animation looks pretty decent although a bit inconsistent in some places and the soundtrack added to the experience rather than subtracted from it. I found the pacing to be a bit rushed and I feel that the movie could have definitely used some extra runtime,but the story was enjoyable and I found myself liking Vesimir,but it's nothing spectacular.

However,the script needlessly changed events from the Witcher universe and It messed with the timeline a bit too much in my humble opinion. My biggest gripe is with the powers of the Witcher themselves as they (and especially their signs) are waaay too OP. And I felt as if the derive of Kaer Morhan was needlessly of the top. I could go on for a good while nitpicking all of the seemingly unnecessary changes. But alas,it doesn't matter too much and the movie is still enjoyable in my opinion.

Without spoilers this movie did much more than a live action version ever could. The action and fight scenes are epic and the story is very good and gets very emotional at times.

If you are a long time Witcher fan you probably know how it's going to end, but that didn't stop me from really enjoying this movie.

The characters are great, the voice acting is great and it holds true to the Witcher story telling style where no one is fully good or fully evil, everyone has a reason for doing what they are doing and you can sympathize with even the worst characters.

Overall 10/10 for an animated movie and I'm much more hyped for season 2 now.

No help for new watchers. It was a meh. Not the best but not the worst either. There was little or no context for people who start watching Witcher now.

A bit rushed and over the top but enjoyable. Nice visuals and animations. Great soundtrack.

Not exactly a Witcher story that can be a canon for The Witcher book series or the game series but I enjoyed it anyway, mostly because Vesemir looks a lot like Adam Jensen from Deus Ex and honestly I have a crush on Adam.

It was a good fantasy movie with good animation and action but as I said it's not a Witcher movie.

(Edit: It may be best to treat this film's story as a re-write or alternative adaptation of The Witcher universe.) Any fans of The Witcher and its many works know and love Geralt, but we've rarely been given stories of his teacher. This movie resolves that issue by giving us a heart-felt, detailed, and beautiful, and I say again, Beautiful look at Vesemir's origins. Without spoiling anything, Nightmare of the Wolf shows us an emotional and epic telling of a critical event in Witcher history while delivering the tale of what led Vesemir to becoming the vaunted teacher to the "hero" we know. The writing was evocative. The characters were interesting and believable. The action was jaw-dropping. And holding it all together was some of the most brilliant animation to ever grace Netflix. It does have some instances of predictability and some of its pacing could've been worked out better if it were allowed more run time as a season instead of a movie, but none of it was to any significant detriment to the overall feel and enjoyment of the film.

It was nice to have a better view at their origins, but it lacked something. The sound score was good, the graphics the same. The story was predictable and I'm an outsider, I don't know the stories from the books or games. Still, there's potential. Looking forward to see more of them!

Beau de Mayo, who also writes for the show, truly understands the themes of The Witcher and plays with them brilliantly. We have right here a very well written example of it.

The movie manages to have a soul, and makes us fall in love with the characters almost instantly. Even if it's short, it packs a lot but still has a fluid and flawless storytelling. In addition to that, it ties in with Season 1 and 2 of the show and for a fan it's another layer of what makes this film pleasurable.

The quality of the music, voice acting and animation support this writing marvelously, for a thrilling result. A must-watch for fans and more casual viewers of S1 since how well the prequel shows us where it all comes from.

Hard to find issues, really. No other choice than giving it 10/10.

Maybe a little short for the story its trying to carry, but overall a pretty decent film. It does rely somewhat on the already build witcher universe, so it did cut some narrative corners because they could. All in all, solid movie.

A lot of the bad reviews here are about how the film did not respect the canon. Tears, finger gestures and other such nonsense. If you care more about the canon than the story, I guess you should not watch this film. However, if you like compelling characters, good animation and an epic storyline, then this is for you. I have read the books and I have played the games: whoever thinks there is a canon that holds them both is inside an illusion.

Now about the film. It's not perfect, but for me it was well close. The animation is good, barring some lazy 3D in some fight scenes, the voices are perfect, the story is beautiful and sad - the scene when he says he is also 70 was great, tons of action like in the games, but also focus on the actual morals and emotions of the characters, like in the books. The ending was epic, but very rushed. A lot of the film was setting it up, to see it end so abruptly was kind of jarring. Also logic was a bit strained there.

The story is a prequel, a bit of origin for Geralt, how he became such a goody two shoes, and also explaining why Kaer Morhen is in ruins in his time. The books are not clearly explaining how the hold was destroyed other than say it was a bunch of fanatics spurred and helped by mages, which is consistent with the film. I liked the Netflix Henry Cavill series, but the many characters and random timelines threw me off a little. This film brings a little normality to the franchise, even if it, too, has a lot of flashbacks.

Also, apparently, this film sets up the second season of the Witcher. I find the character of Kitsu intriguing, a seed for possible continuations, a creature of such power should have an effect on the world and, being a witcher/monster/elf hybrid, should have a life span allowing her to live to Geralt's time. At least the concept of elven witchers (perhaps bread to battle humans) is great and should be explored further.

Bottom line: keep these witchers coming! Can't wait for December 21.

You definitely need to have your expectations in line before watching. It expands the universe of the Witcher that Netflix seems to be building, which as a big fan of the books, games and the series, is great to see. The animation is pretty great and there is some good sequences, it's a close parallel to the Castlevania series which I personally loved.

The voice cast do a great job and everybody sounds captivating, especially the voice actor for Vesemir is perfect and he captures the essence of what I expected from a younger Vesemir. The dialogue and story is serviceable, but sadly the movie ends up feeling a bit rushed, as there is a lot of content they try to cramp into a short amount of time, while still pleasing the eyes with amazing animation and action. All in all it does an okay job at expanding the universe and works for telling the story about Vesemir, but also the degradation of the Witcher's.

If you're a fan of any of the Witcher content, I think its worth a watch, just to see and hear new stories from the universe, even if it doesn't culminate in anything spectacular.

6/10.

I've spent the past two year's now studying, filmmaking, directing, and reading the entire Witcher Series, along with completing the Wild Hunt 3 times over.

This film was pretty damn great; a prequel that answered my questions about the sacking of Kaer Morhen, and the origins of Vesemir. I personally think the film would've made more sense if it was longer, but it was sped along nicely, sometimes a tad too fast. The animation was stellar, with the writing almost perfect. My issues: The voice acting felt a bit monotone-not a deal breaker, but frustrating. It took immersion away a bit.

Tetra's backstory and motivation was answered, but I could've used more info.

Vessemir's true light; hard men are made hard by circumstance-I hope that season 2 of Witcher 3 gives us more of his morally-good side. Kindness is a virtue, even if only ever shown at ones worst moments.

The directing seemed to "direct" this film to readers of the original book series; we forget, not all of us have invested hundreds of ours rummaging through the novels. Some people may be left in the dark to some extent *cough*, "season one of the Witcher Netflix series" All in all, a great prequel that does justice to the Witcher Universe.

Time to get back to reading, Winds Howling.

I watched this because I love the story line, acting and overall scenes found in the Witcher series. But this does not follow suit, (obviously there is no acting on camera), the voice acting leaves a bit to be desired, the storyline feels forced and ill thought through, lastly this special completely lacks depth; the witcher universe has an extremely rich storyline yet this special seems to be tailored to normies, without depth and overall not worth your time.

Nightmare of the Wolf is a good anime film from Netflix, which explores Geralt's mentor, Vesemir. It's a life-adventure story of Vesemir and how he became the Witcher, a journey from local servant to professional monster hunter (The Witcher). And just like every other life-adventure story our main character had a mentor who inspired Vesemir to become the Witcher. The only thing that was a little problematic was the pace of the film, which is really very fast and very quickly completes 1½ hr but without losing interest.

I liked the animation quality, some people also compared it with Castlevania which is also Netflix's original anime series. And the action scenes are great, as expected to have in the Witcher universe and that was one of the most needed things like it also showed a small part of monster hunting.

This anime never gives much time to other characters and only focuses on a single character's journey. Maybe it was the creator's choice as they are expecting the audience to watch The Witcher series and that's good, but still at least it could be much better if the antagonist is given a little more depth which is why it feels like a quick flashback story. That's why it can be confusing for the audience who didn't watch the main series, which explores and focuses on side characters that help in world-building and is highly recommended. Because of the fast pace, it lacks emotional depth, like when it is most needed at the end of the story of the loss of someone close to him and the death of monsters (which is shown very clearly in the series). As said for Witcher fans who had watched the main series, expectations are high.

There is one interesting thing that it has a small romantic story, between Illyana and Vesemir. It had given the needed time to feel it.

If you like watching life-adventure-journey type films then this is for you, also if you want to watch something new, interesting like action stuff. And if you are a fantasy fiction fan like me then you have to watch this.

For those who had watched the main series 'The Witcher' this is a highly recommended and must-watch film, make sure to watch it as you had Vesemir's character in season 2 and definitely wanted to know how he is like this. And also the Witcher fans there is a very little surprise for you which you will notice in the climax scene, your very favorite character of the Witcher series.

The animation is beautiful and well done, but this would have been so much better as an anthology series or mini series showcasing the adventures of young Vesemir and eventual downfall of the Witchers.

Instead, the (inaccurate) plot felt far too rushed for the single 1.5 hour film. So many interesting characters and plot points without enough development.

Reboot it, keep the animation team, and slow down the plot. Each episode could focus around young Vesemir taking down a specific monster, with an overarching main plot.

There is a dearth of good mature fantasy anime. This could easily fill the void.