The Hexer

The Hexer (Polish: Wiedźmin) is the international title of both a movie (2001) and a television series (2002) based on the witcher short stories by Andrzej Sapkowski, although it more commonly referred to as The Witcher by fans since the release of The Witcher computer game. Both were directed by Marek Brodzki, written by Michał Szczerbic, and produced by Lew Rywin. The role of Geralt was played by Michał Żebrowski, and the music was composed by Grzegorz Ciechowski.

The theatrical movie was essentially the then-unreleased TV series chopped into about 2 hours, and received very poor reviews from both fans and critics. The 13-episode TV series came out the following year. The series was much more coherent than the confusing movie, but was still considered a failure mostly due to the film's already bad reputation and due to vast changes to the source material.

Cast
Main characters:
 * Michał Żebrowski - Geralt of Rivia
 * Zbigniew Zamachowski - Dandelion (Jaskier)
 * Marta Bitner - Ciri
 * Grażyna Wolszczak - Yennefer of Vengerberg
 * Maciej Kozłowski - Gwidon/Falwick

Recurring characters:
 * Ewa Wiśniewska - Calanthe
 * Anna Dymna - Nenneke
 * Jerzy Nowak - Vesemir
 * Wojciech Duryasz - Old Witcher
 * Kinga Ilgner - Renfri
 * Aleksander Bednarz - Mousesack (Myszowór)
 * Magdalena Warzecha - Visenna
 * Agnieszka Dygant - Toruviel

List of episodes
The Hexer theatrical movie is a compilation of material from various episodes.
 * 1) "Dzieciństwo" ("Childhood")
 * 2) "Nauka" ("Training")
 * 3) "Człowiek - pierwsze spotkanie" ("Human - First Meeting")
 * 4) "Smok" ("The Dragon")
 * 5) "Okruch lodu" ("A Shard of Ice")
 * 6) "Calanthe"
 * 7) "Dolina Kwiatów" ("The Valley of Flowers" - Dol Blathanna)
 * 8) "Rozdroże" ("Crossroads")
 * 9) "Świątynia Melitele" ("The Temple of Melitele")
 * 10) "Mniejsze zło" ("The Lesser Evil")
 * 11) "Jaskier" ("Dandelion")
 * 12) "Falwick"
 * 13) "Ciri"

Differences between the books and the series
The makers of the TV series and movie made many changes to the plot of the Witcher short stories, the major ones being:
 * In the books, Geralt was given to the witchers by his mother, Visenna and never knew his father. In the series, he was taken from his parents by the Witchers through the Law of Surprise.
 * In the books, there was no actual witcher code, although Geralt made up a code of his own. In the series, the witchers have a code that allows them only to fight in an "honorable" way (even with monsters).
 * In the books, Vesemir was a witcher. In the series, he is a priest. Some of the characteristics of Vesemir the witcher were given to the Old Witcher in the series.
 * In the books, Geralt was never treated as an outcast by other witchers, while he is in the series.
 * In the books, there are no female witchers, while a school of female witchers exists in the series.
 * In the books, Geralt first met Ciri in the Brokilon forest, not in the Melitele temple in Ellander, as in the series.
 * Falwick's role was greatly expanded in order to make him a worthy nemesis for Geralt in the series.
 * In the books, The Order of the White Rose was not as prominently present as in the series and had no ties to Nilfgaard nor Renfri.
 * In the books, Nenneke and Iola didn't die.

DVD releases
The movie was released on DVD (including an international version with English subtitles). The series was never released on DVD and there are no known plans to release it. It has been unofficially released with English subtitles on the Internet.