The Dark Knights: animated tattoos, plastic swords, and cheap skulls!

However, shortly following her statement, the series “Knights of Darkness – Wolves of the Night” was announced by writer Hani Al-Saadi, to be part of the current Ramadan season, so Al-Saadi returned with historical fantasy, which was a major reason for his fame and the spread of his name in the Arab world, as he is the writer who presented in the nineties the most prominent Series that belong to this style, such as: “Al-Kawaser”, “Al-Jawareh”, “Al-Bawasil” and others.

Since the series “Knights of Darkness – Wolves of the Night” began, it has sparked a whirlwind of ridicule on social media, and followers have dubbed it “The Game of Thrones – The Syrian Version”, referring to the huge differences in the technical level between international fantasy series and what is being produced locally.

Thus, sarcasm seemed to be the only factor that led to the popularity of the series, which of course cannot be compared to series such as Game of Thrones and the like. It is even difficult to compare it to the Syrian historical fantasy series in the nineties, which were far better than it, despite the weak capabilities with which these were produced. The works are compared to “Knights of Darkness – Wolves of the Night”, which was directed by Sami Janadi, and used higher quality cameras. But the sloppy story, superficial dialogues, and poor performance complicated matters, and made the series ridiculous by all accounts.

The series revolves around a group of bandits and criminals, the “Night Wolves”, headed by the sorcerer “Abu Al-Hakam” (Salloum Haddad), and led by “Abu Al-Dahma” (Mehyar Khaddour). The “Night Wolves” decide to take over the city of “Rayhan”, which is ruled by a righteous ruler who represents the absolute good. They work to insinuate conspiracies and machinations.

However, the focus of the work is on very superficial love stories, so that the story of controlling the city of “Rehan” turns into a sub-story, in front of the intertwined love stories between a girl named “Salma” from the people of “Rehan”, who falls in love with the leader of the Night Wolves, “Abu Dahma”. And a young man named Zaid (Lujain Ismail); After a few episodes, the story turns into a traditional love relationship triangle, in which the story is devoid of any excitement, because one of the two lovers represents absolute good, and the other represents absolute evil, and the audience knows very well the girl’s choice, which will not change inevitably.

The most prominent problems of the series at the level of directing, is that the work lacks a clear and logical visual identity, as the scenography came as a mixture between the Levantine environment and the old historical fantasy series in an illogical way, so we see houses made of mud and inside them a foundation made of Damascene mosaic! As for the dirt roads on which the heroes of the series roam on horses, traces of car wheels are evident!

But the worst elements are the costumes, which seem to be a mixture between Arab fashion and ancient costumes belonging to different civilizations from cold regions, and are dominated by the use of fur, and are accompanied by cheap and contemporary accessories! One of the series’ protagonists wears a black damask cloak with two contemporary black snow mittens, and is decked out in cheap plastic skulls.

Perhaps the image in “Dark Knights – Wolves of the Night” seemed worse, because the cameras that were used to film the work are modern and of high quality, unlike the poor cameras that were used in the nineties, which may have covered many defects, especially the defects related to the poor makeup used. With the evil characters many tattoos and strange shape.

The hero of the series “Knights of Darkness”, Salloum Haddad, has a large tattoo on his forehead. The shape of the tattoo and its location differ in each episode, as everything is done without regard for accuracy or any professionalism requirements in the drama industry.

Likewise, high-quality cameras expose the sluggishness of production in battle scenes, which use plastic swords, which are hardly suitable for children’s toys, and the poor quality of the scene is complemented by the poor performance of the actors, who do not deal with plastic swords as heavy and wounding weapons, and do not make any effort to make us believe that they are real, as they are supposed to. Any actor would do!