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Review ITV DVD / When Eight Bells Toll [1971]
Actors & Directors
  • Corin Redgrave
  • Etienne Périer
  • Robert Morley
  • Anthony Hopkins
  • Nathalie Delon
  • Jack Hawkins
Release date: 2004-05-17
Run time: 90 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £4.92

Review When Eight Bells Toll [1971] / ITV DVD:


Review Contender Entertainment Group / Fist Of Fury [1993]
Actors & Directors
  • Bruce Lee
  • James Tien
  • Lo Wei
  • Nora Miao
Release date: 2006-01-23
Run time: 102 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £4.50

Review Fist Of Fury [1993] / Contender Entertainment Group:


Review MGM Entertainment / Thunderbolt And Lightfoot [1974]
Actors & Directors
  • Geoffrey Lewis
  • Clint Eastwood
  • Jeff Bridges
  • Gary Busey
  • Catherine Bach
  • Michael Cimino
Release date: 2003-07-21
Run time: 110 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.25

Review Thunderbolt And Lightfoot [1974] / MGM Entertainment:

Jeff Bridges actually corralled an Oscar nomination for his spirited, oddball performance in the genre-crime story Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, directed by first-timer Michael Cimino who (a short two films later) would bring down a studio with Heaven's Gate. Clint Eastwood plays a bank robber par excellence with a flair for explosives who is being hunted by his former partners, who think he has their loot from their last job. Bridges is his eager apprentice and sidekick, who helps him escape; when Eastwood finally makes peace with his hunters, Bridges convinces them to try a daring robbery-but things inevitably go awry. The relationship between Eastwood and Bridges is both funny and touching in this, one of Eastwood's better post-Dirty Harry efforts. -Marshall Fine.

Review Warner Home Video / The Matrix Trilogy : Matrix / Matrix Reloaded / Matrix Revolutions (3 Disc Box Set) [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Andy Wachowski
  • Joe Pantoliano
  • Keanu Reeves
  • Hugo Weaving
  • Carrie-Anne Moss
  • Laurence Fishburne
  • Larry Wachowski
Release date: 2006-09-18
Run time: 457 min.
RRP: £20.99
Price: £11.88

Review The Matrix Trilogy : Matrix / Matrix Reloaded / Matrix Revolutions (3 Disc Box Set) [1999] / Warner Home Video:

The first film of The Matrix trilogy established the Wachowski brothers as innovative filmmakers who push the boundaries of live-action films. Like the groundbreaking Star Wars, The Matrix showcases a unique visual style, one the Wachowskis achieved through an array of techniques and digital effects, some never before seen in mainstream Hollywood films. Although computer morphing technology had been used before in The Abyss and Terminator 2, the Wachowskis were the first to use "bullet time", a time-bending digital effect that utilises both computer-generated imagery and still photography. The sequel The Matrix Reloaded showcased that visual style to further effect, with The Matrix Revolutions completing the trilogy. DVD Description The first film is a complex story that aspires to mythology, focusing on a computer hacker named Neo (Keanu Reeves) who searches for the truth behind the mysterious force known as the Matrix. He finds his answer with a group of strangers led by the charismatic Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne). What they encounter in confronting that truth makes for a lightning-paced, eye-popping thrill ride of a movie. The Matrix is packed with stunning fight scenes (choreographed by accomplished Hong Kong director Yuen Wo-Ping), astonishing visual effects, quotable lines, and a memorable supporting cast (led by Carrie-Anne Moss, in her first major Hollywood film). The Matrix Reloaded sequel delivers added amounts of everything that the first film had, with the exception of surprises. We see more of the "real world" in the last human city of Zion and we go back to the 1999-look urban virtual reality of the Matrix for more encounters with artificially intelligent baddies and-the real reason you're watching—there are a lot more martial arts superheroics. [+]
This is just part one of a story that spans two sequels, with the final film of the trilogy, The Matrix Revolutions, required to tie up the story and sort out a great deal of plot complexity.

Review Pathe Distribution / Bulletproof Monk [2003]
Actors & Directors
  • Karel Roden
  • Seann William Scott
  • Paul Hunter
  • Jaime King
  • Victoria Smurfit
  • Yun-Fat Chow
Release date: 2003-09-15
Run time: 99 min.
RRP: £17.99
Price: £1.59

Review Bulletproof Monk [2003] / Pathe Distribution:

The tremendous charisma of Chow Yun-Fat anchors this entertaining comic-book romp. Bulletproof Monk centres around a monk with no name (Chow) dedicated to protecting a sacred scroll that can give world-manipulating power to anyone who reads it. A hidden Nazi has been pursuing the scroll for 60 years and has finally caught up with the monk in present-day New York City; meanwhile, the monk suspects he may have found a disciple in a petty thief (Seann William Scott) who's learned kung fu from watching double-feature chopsocky flicks. Don't let the presence of Chow Yun-Fat lead you to expect much substance-this doesn't have the emotional scope of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or the visual panache of Hard-Boiled. But Bulletproof Monk is a cheerful, tightly edited, unpretentious action flick with flashes of humour, good for a mindless evening's entertainment. -Bret Fetzer.

Review Warner Home Video / Forever Young [1993]
Actors & Directors
  • George Wendt
  • Steve Miner
  • Elijah Wood
  • Mel Gibson
  • Isabel Glasser
  • Jamie Lee Curtis
Release date: 1999-02-22
Run time: 97 min.
RRP: £13.99
Price: £3.00

Review Forever Young [1993] / Warner Home Video:

A sleeper hit when released in 1992, this romantic fantasy works as a comedic adventure and a gentle tearjerker thanks to Mel Gibson's appealing performance. He plays Daniel, a daring test pilot who is deeply distraught by the apparent death of his girlfriend, Helen, in 1939. Feeling little reason to live, he volunteers for a pioneering cryogenics experiment and is thawed out 50 years later by two young boys. They bring the confused pilot home to Nat's single mom, Claire (Jamie Lee Curtis). There's a hint of romance, but Daniel desperately needs to know if Helen really died in 1939, and he discovers that love has a way of surviving a half-century leap in time. The premise of Forever Young is hokey and certain plot details are conveniently ignored, but Gibson, Curtis, and Elijah Wood (as Nat) hold it together with irresistible charm and just the right balance of fantasy and drama. -Jeff Shannon.

Review Mosaic Movies / Zulu Dawn [1979]
Actors & Directors
  • Denholm Elliott
  • James Faulkner
  • Peter Vaughan
  • Simon Ward
  • Douglas Hickox
  • Burt Lancaster
Release date: 2004-01-05
Run time: 112 min.
RRP: £13.99
Price: £2.63

Review Zulu Dawn [1979] / Mosaic Movies:

Cy Endfield cowrote the epic prequel Zulu Dawn 15 years after his enormously popular Zulu. Set in 1879, this film depicts the catastrophic Battle of Isandhlwana, which remains the worst defeat of the British army by natives-the British contingent was outnumbered 16-to-1 by the Zulu tribesmen. The film's opinion of events is made immediately clear in its title sequence: ebullient African village life presided over by King Cetshwayo is contrasted with aristocratic artifice under the arrogant eye of General Lord Chelmsford (Peter O'Toole). Chelmsford is at the heart of all that goes wrong, initiating the catastrophic battle with an ultimatum made seemingly for the sake of giving his troops something to do. His detached manner leads to one mistake after another and this is wryly illustrated in a moment when neither he nor his officers can be bothered to pronounce the name of the land they're in. That it's a beautiful land none the less is made clear by the superb cinematography, which drinks in the massive open spaces that shrink the British army to a line of red ants. Splendidly stiff-upper-lipped support comes from a heroic Burt Lancaster and a fluffy, yet gruff, Bob Hoskins. Although the story is less focused and inevitably more diffuse than the concentrated events of Rorke's Drift that followed soon after, Zulu Dawn is an unflinchingly honest depiction of British Imperial diplomacy. -Paul Tonks.

Review Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm / From Dusk Till Dawn Trilogy (Box Set) [1995]
Actors & Directors
  • Brett Harrelson
  • Duane Whitaker
  • Marco Leonardi
  • Scott Spiegel
  • Harvey Keitel
  • P.J. Pesce
  • Muse Watson
  • Robert Rodriguez
Release date: 2005-10-03
Run time: 281 min.
RRP: £34.99
Price: £7.98

Review From Dusk Till Dawn Trilogy (Box Set) [1995] / Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm:

This box set collects From Dusk Till Dawn and its two lesser-known sequels, plus a wealth of associated material. None are horror classics, but taken as a trilogy the series offers above-average thrills and an interesting invented mythology. The original is a trashy but fun crime spree/vampire movie, directed by Robert Rodriguez, with Quentin Tarantino doing one job too many as producer, writer and co-star. The crime movie half is suspenseful and flavoursome and the left turn into horror begins wonderfully, but the script makes the mistake of getting rid of the flamboyant monster villains too quickly, replacing them with an orgy of rubbery Evil Dead II-style effects. It never gets boring, there's a terrific Tex-Mex-Gothic soundtrack and Rodriguez stages shoot-outs better than anyone not called John Woo. It was a big enough hit to warrant sequels made for the video market, shot back-to-back in South Africa (doubling for Texas and Mexico). From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money begins as another cowboy noir, with ex-con Robert Patrick playing cat and mouse with Texas Ranger Bo Hopkins. It segues into horror as heist man Duane Whitaker runs into a bat on the highway and proceeds to turn his gang into vampires who engage during a total eclipse in a Wild Bunch-style bank raid-cum-shootout. Switching genres and playing the prequel game, From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter is more distinctive. A cod-spaghetti Western, it takes a plot nugget from history as the aged Ambrose Bierce (Michael Parks, the Sheriff killed before the credits in the first film) tangles with vampires in Mexico in 1914 en route to his mythic disappearance. [+]
Though it has the best storyline of the trio, it still degenerates into a compilation of horror gags in its carnage-strewn climax. On the DVD: From Dusk Till Dawn is identical to the previous collector's edition release, while the sequels here appear on disc for the first time in great-looking 1. 85:1 widescreen, which shows off the attempts made by directors Scott Spiegel and P. J. Pesce to add visual quality to reruns of the original's plot. A second disc included in the first movie's keepcase features "Full Tilt Boogie", a light but informative feature-length documentary about making an effects-heavy film on the cheap; there's also a Rodriguez-Tarantino commentary; alternate and deleted scenes (more gore effects); excerpts from the film intercut with on-the-set-footage and commented on by Rodriguez and effects man Greg Nicotero; the trailer; Rodriguez music videos; a still gallery; cast and crew bios. If you count the sequels as extras in their own right, it's not that disappointing that they only rate one tiny extra between them, a deleted snippet from The Hangman's Daughter originally intended as an after-the-end-credits punchline. -Kim Newman.

Review Warner Home Video / The Dukes of Hazzard - Unseen [2005]
Actors & Directors
  • David Leitch
  • Jay Chandrasekhar
  • Heather Hemmens
  • David Koechner
  • Johnny Knoxville
  • Kevin Heffernan
Release date: 2006-01-09
Run time: 103 min.
RRP: £18.99
Price: £1.74

Review The Dukes of Hazzard - Unseen [2005] / Warner Home Video:

The teaming of Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott as well as the presence of the '70s-flavored car chases that were a specialty of the TV series guarantees that The Dukes of Hazzard will be even more lowbrow than the show that inspired it. However, this brain-damaging comedy is more "rehash" than "remake," as good ol' Georgiaboys Luke Duke and his cousin Bo are frequently upstaged by the General Lee, the Confederate-flagged '69 Charger that they drive, jump, race, and fly in as they smuggle moonshine for their Uncle Jesse, played by Willie Nelson. Meanwhile, cousin Daisy Duke-Jessica Simpson-is reliably available to model her short-shorts and awesome figure, while corrupt honcho Boss Hogg-Burt Reynolds, who should know better-recruits a local NASCAR star to advance his wily scheme of converting Hazzard County into a strip mine. Director Jay Chandrasekhar, previously behind Super Troopers manages to mine some good-natured humour from the movie's oval-track detour and a few colorful supporting players. Otherwise, consider yourself warned: The Dukes of Hazzard is shameless Hollywood product at its most forgettable, trafficking in shameless white, rural Southern stereotypes. -Jeff Shannon.

Review Optimum Home Entertainment / Three Musketeers/Four Musketeers [1973]
Actors & Directors
  • Faye Dunaway
  • Oliver Reed
  • Michael York
  • Frank Finlay
  • Richard Chamberlain
  • Richard Lester
Release date: 2008-08-04
Run time: 205 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £6.88

Review Three Musketeers/Four Musketeers [1973] / Optimum Home Entertainment:


Review Warner Home Video / Beowulf [Blu-ray] [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • Ray Winstone
  • Robin Wright Penn
  • Brendan Gleeson
  • Anthony Hopkins
  • Angelina Jolie
  • Robert Zemeckis
Release date: 2008-03-17
Run time: 110 min.
RRP: £26.99
Price: £14.39

Review Beowulf [Blu-ray] [2007] / Warner Home Video:

Ray Winstone, Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich, Brendan Gleeson, Robin Wright-Penn Spectacular animated action scenes turn the ancient epic poem Beowulf into a modern fantasy movie, while motion-capture technology transforms plump actor Ray Winstone (Sexy Beast) into a burly Nordic warrior. When a Danish kingdom is threatened by the monster Grendel (voiced and physicalised by Crispin Glover, River's Edge), Beowulf-lured by the promise of heroic glory-comes to rescue them. He succeeds, but falls prey to the seductive power of Grendel's mother, played by Angelina Jolie. and as Jolie's pneumatically animated form rises from an underground lagoon with demon-claw high heels, it becomes clear that we're leaving the original epic far, far behind. Regrettably, the motion-capture process has made only modest improvements since The Polar Express; while the characters' eyes no longer look so flat and zombie-like, their faces remain inexpressive and movements are still wooden. As a result, the most effective sequences feature wildly animated battles and the most vivid character is Grendel, whose grotesqueness ends up making him far more sympathetic than any of the mannequin-like human beings. The meant-to-be-titillating images of a naked Jolie resemble an inflatable doll more than a living, breathing woman (or succubus, as the case may be). But the fights-particularly Grendel's initial assault on the celebration hut-pop with lushly animated gore and violence. [+]
Also featuring the CGI-muffled talents of Anthony Hopkins (Silence of the Lambs), Robin Wright Penn (The Princess Bride), and John Malkovich (Dangerous Liaisons). -Bret Fetzer.

Review Warner Home Video / How The West Was Won [1963]
Actors & Directors
  • Henry Hathaway
  • George Marshall
  • Carroll Baker
  • John Ford
  • Richard Widmark
  • Eli Wallach
  • John Wayne
  • James Stewart
Release date: 2008-09-29
Run time: 162 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £9.98

Review How The West Was Won [1963] / Warner Home Video:


Review Manga Entertainment / Ghost In The Shell Movie Double Bill
Actors & Directors
  • Koichi Yamadera
  • Atsuko Tanaka
  • Akio Ohtsuka
  • Mamoru Oshii
Release date: 2006-09-04
Run time: 179 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £6.82

Review Ghost In The Shell Movie Double Bill / Manga Entertainment:


Review Warner Home Video / Appleseed - Ex Machina [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • Shinji Aramaki
Release date: 2008-06-02
Run time: 100 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £12.20

Review Appleseed - Ex Machina [2007] / Warner Home Video:


Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Gunfight At The Ok Corral [1957]
Actors & Directors
  • Rhonda Fleming
  • Kenneth Tobey
  • Burt Lancaster
  • Whit Bissell
  • Kirk Douglas
  • John Sturges
Release date: 2006-09-25
Run time: 122 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £3.57

Review Gunfight At The Ok Corral [1957] / Paramount Home Entertainment:


Review Warner Home Video / Payback [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • John Myhre
  • Bill Duke
  • Brian Helgeland
  • Mel Gibson
  • Gregg Henry
  • David Paymer
  • Maria Bello
Release date: 1999-09-20
Run time: 97 min.
RRP: £13.99
Price: £2.39

Review Payback [1999] / Warner Home Video:

If it weren't for the fact that John Boorman's Point Blank was already a definitive take on Richard Stark's novel The Hunter (reissued under the title Payback), Payback would be a well-above-average 90s action movie. The original toughness is diluted: Mel Gibson's Porter, replacing Lee Marvin's Walker and Stark's Parker, comes on like a hardnut but turns into a softie when he hooks up with call-girl Maria Bello (and he even likes dogs). Double-crossed and wounded after shifty Gregg Henry dupes Porter's wife (Deborah Kara Unger) into betraying him, Porter sets out to get back the $70,000 share of a heist that he feels he is owed. Because Henry has used the money to buy his way into "the Outfit", he has to deal not only with the squirming scumbag but a hierarchy of corporate mobsters (William Devane, James Coburn, Kris Kristofferson) for whom it would be bad business practice to hand over even the trivial sum. Director-writer Brian Helgeland gives it a steely-blue look and gets good performances all round (with room for Lucy Liu as an amusing dominatrix) while constructing a story in which everything fits. But it's just a good thriller, since the masterpiece potential has already been staked out. -Kim Newman.

Review Studio Gonzo / Afro Samurai -- Director's Cut Edition [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • Fuminori Kizaki
  • Samuel L. Jackson
  • Kelly Hu
  • Ron Perlman
Release date: 2007-10-15
Run time: 175 min.
RRP: £22.99
Price: £15.12

Review Afro Samurai -- Director's Cut Edition [2007] / Studio Gonzo:


Review Momentum Pictures / The Rambo Trilogy : First Blood / Rambo - First Blood 2 / Rambo 3 (3 Disc Box Set)
Actors & Directors
  • Julia Nickson-Soul
  • Peter MacDonald
  • Richard Crenna
  • Steven Berkoff
  • Charles Napier
  • Ted Kotcheff
  • George P. Cosmatos
  • Sylvester Stallone
Release date: 2005-10-10
Run time: 292 min.
RRP: £39.99
Price: £8.92

Review The Rambo Trilogy : First Blood / Rambo - First Blood 2 / Rambo 3 (3 Disc Box Set) / Momentum Pictures:

Sylvester Stallone never courted as much controversy as he did with the screen violence of the Rambo trilogy. From 1982 to 1988, they kept his name above Schwarzenegger's in the muscle hero league, with "Rambo" becoming a descriptive phrase in the language to describe gung-ho aggression (in Japanese, "rambo" means "violence"). The strangest part of the character's success is that originally he had none. Both David Morrell's novel and the original incarnation of First Blood had the Vietnam vet committing suicide after his rampage through small town America. The un-Hollywood ending was changed when Stallone and the producers recognised here was a character with possibilities. First Blood: Part II was co-written by James (Titanic) Cameron, a man who has always recognised box office possibilities. Stallone took a very relevant (to 1985) issue of surviving POWs and created an alternative end to the Vietnam War. This was achieved courtesy of the Cold War animosity that still existed towards the Russians, embodied in a suitably vile cameo from Steven Berkoff. A little love interest helped ground the movie and prevent it from completely turning into a video game, as did the best of Jerry Goldsmith's stirring scores for the trilogy. After saving himself and then his Country, Rambo III was simply about saving his friend Richard Crenna. [+]
The code of honour was by this point watered down into a song lyric, "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother". Nevertheless the final instalment continues to say something about the indomitable American spirit that will not accept defeat lightly. Patriotism may never have been portrayed quite so bloodily before Rambo's arrival, but at least a generation learned to question attitudes to war veterans, as well as the benefits of carrying a compass in your hunting knife. On the DVD: The Rambo trilogy on disc brings together all three movies in crisp 2. 35:1 widescreen transfers. Sadly the extras are a little thin considering how much more was on the old Laser Discs. The first film has but a trailer; the third has a few minutes of behind the scenes material; the second has quite a few mini-documentaries that could really have done with being edited together, and having repeated interviews cut out. But there's still fun to be had hearing how deep and meaningful the movies were in conception. -Paul Tonks.

Review Optimum Home Entertainment / Shaolin Soccer [2001]
Actors & Directors
  • Stephen Chow
  • Stephen Chow
  • Vicki Zhao
  • Man Tai Ng
Release date: 2005-03-14
Run time: 86 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £3.13

Review Shaolin Soccer [2001] / Optimum Home Entertainment:

Computer generated special effects have seldom been so giddy as in Shaolin Soccer, a gleeful fusion of kung fu and a classic Bad News Bears sports story. A former soccer star-whose "golden leg" was broken by a hired mob-assembles a team of former students of Shaolin martial arts, whose assorted skills (indicated by their nicknames, like Mighty Steel Leg and Iron Head) lend themselves to the swift interplay of the world's most popular game. Along the way, the team's leader (Hong Kong comic superstar Stephen Chow) meets a sticky bun baker (Vicki Zhao) whose kung fu is the equal of any of his teammates. Shaolin Soccer is supremely silly-in the final match, their opponents are called Team Evil-but that's part of the fun. American movies rarely achieve this perfect balance of the absurd and the sincere. A delight. -Bret Fetzer.

Review Warner Home Video / Bonnie And Clyde [1967]
Actors & Directors
  • Estelle Parsons
  • Faye Dunaway
  • Gene Hackman
  • Michael J. Pollard
  • Arthur Penn
  • Warren Beatty
Release date: 2006-06-01
Run time: 107 min.
RRP: £13.99
Price: £3.25

Review Bonnie And Clyde [1967] / Warner Home Video:

One of the landmark films of the 1960s, Bonnie and Clyde changed the course of American cinema. Setting a milestone for screen violence that paved the way for Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, this exercise in mythologized biography should not be labelled as a bloodbath; as critic Pauline Kael wrote in her rave review, "it's the absence of sadism that throws the audience off balance". The film is more of a poetic ode to the Great Depression, starring the dream team of Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as the titular antiheroes, who barrel across the South and Midwest robbing banks with Clyde's brother Buck (Gene Hackman), Buck's frantic wife Blanche (Estelle Parsons) and their faithful accomplice C W Moss (the inimitable Michael J. Pollard). Bonnie and Clyde is an unforgettable classic that has lost none of its power since the 1967 release. -Jeff Shannon.

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Models & Brands:
When Eight Bells Toll [1971], Fist Of Fury [1993], Thunderbolt And Lightfoot [1974], The Matrix Trilogy : Matrix / Matrix Reloaded / Matrix Revolutions (3 Disc Box Set) [1999], Bulletproof Monk [2003], Forever Young [1993], Zulu Dawn [1979], From Dusk Till Dawn Trilogy (Box Set) [1995], The Dukes of Hazzard - Unseen [2005], Three Musketeers/Four Musketeers [1973], Beowulf [Blu-ray] [2007], How The West Was Won [1963], Ghost In The Shell Movie Double Bill, Appleseed - Ex Machina [2007], Gunfight At The Ok Corral [1957], Payback [1999], Afro Samurai -- Director's Cut Edition [2007], The Rambo Trilogy : First Blood / Rambo - First Blood 2 / Rambo 3 (3 Disc Box Set), Shaolin Soccer [2001], Bonnie And Clyde [1967]

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