Brotherhood of the Wolf
I'm not sure whether or not its a tragedy that the second best werewolf movie I've ever seen doesn't have a werewolf in it. Does that stop it from being awesome? No, I can't say that it does. Does it stop it from very definitely being a werewolf movie? Not one bit. The intrigue, suspicion, huge monster rampage scenes and tense atmosphere are all lifted straight out of any classic from the genre (except American Werewolf in Paris, because fuck that noise).
I'm actually pretty gobsmacked by this movie's sheer balls. It crams so much into its considerable running time that it actually makes me want to go back and look more critically at some of the more bland and thinly plotted movies sitting on my shelf. Here is a film that manages to mix pre-Revolutionary French aristocratic intrigue, romance and politics alongside absolutely ludicrous kung fu action scenes and a big silly werewolf and still have the skill to make these radical shifts in genre seem natural.
It revels in excess of every kind (very French), from the elaborate period costumes to the breadth of issues that it manages to comment on. Everything from religion to racism is addressed in this movie, and whilst this kind of scatterbrained focus does get grating sometimes you have to admire the sheer balls of the idea.
If I had one complaint it would be the length and density of the subject matter and all the topics it wants to comment on. Sometimes a narrower focus can be a good thing, afterall. Instead it can feel overblown and definitely overlong. This isn't a short movie, and although it never feels boring, it does drag its feet a bit towards the end and I personally never got a sense that it was an epic in the way that the film was trying to present itself as. But is it worth a watch? Oh hell yes it is. There is literally something for everyone to like here. The period intrigue is well acted, the characters are relatively interesting, the kung fu is as fucking cool as hell, the werewolf is pretty damn crazy and Monica Bellucci is cast as an Italian prostitute. Something for everyone, indeed.