"Nacht der Wölfe" (literally: Night of the Wolves) tells the story of a conflict between two rival teenage gangs in Munich. The first gang, the Revengers", consists of German kids (and one Italian) whereas the second gang Bloody Eagles" is Turkish. After one of the Turkish kids entered the wrong place at the wrong time wearing the tribal insignia" of his gang, fights will break sooner or later, although Daniela (Daniela Obermaier) is in love with Dogan (Ali Arkadas) and tries to stop the battle before it begins.
The movie is careful not to be exploitative in any way. It lets all the characters behave very natural; instead of actors with stage experience, the director Nüchtern chose kids from the street for many roles, achieving maximum realism. "Nacht der Wölfe" wants to give you food for thought, such as: is it worth fighting about a patch on a denim jacket, what do symbols really stand for, and can't there be a better meaning in life? But it never slaps you the message in the face, as it happened many times elsewhere. You always have the feeling to witness something real, not a staged fake, and a quarter of a century later, I still like this movie as much as I did when it was released - and the same kind of gangs are still in the streets, so Nacht der Wölfe" certainly has not lost its importance. The soundtrack vinyl LP, by the way, includes 2 songs by Accept, who were still unknown in 1981 when they recorded them, but soon rose to become Germany's most famous speed metal" band.
