Video Find the Perfect Gift    Send a Gift Certificate
Search 
Home › World Cinema
Review Arrow Films / The Count Of Monte Cristo [VHS] [1998]
Actors & Directors
  • Josée Dayan
  • Florence Darel
  • Gérard Depardieu
  • Ornella Muti
  • Jean Rochefort
  • Pierre Arditi
Release date: 2001-10-22
Run time: 360 min.
Creator: Didier Decoin
RRP: £16.99
Price: £75.42

Review The Count Of Monte Cristo [VHS] [1998] / Arrow Films:

Memories of past adaptations of the Alexandre Dumas novel inevitably hover over this Count of Monte Cristo, a four-part French mini series from 1998. Yet despite a rocky beginning, this lengthy costume adventure, starring Gérard Depardieu as the vengeful Dantès, is absolutely mesmerising in its own way. Rich in detail and overlapping subplots, strikingly handsome in art direction without getting ostentatious, this particular Count comes to life after Dantès escapes his lengthy incarceration in solitary confinement. Fans of the story know what comes next: Dantès makes his way to an uninhabited island off Italy, where he locates a vast treasure he has heard about. His sudden, phenomenal wealth gives him the means to reward allies, punish enemies and become an architect of events without anyone knowing who's behind them. While Dantès' mind is bent on destroying those who betrayed him, his deeper nature causes him to perform a vast amount of good as well. Depardieu's big, beefy, clean-shaven self is not exactly the right fit, initially, for a character supposedly subsisting on thin soup for 18 years. He quickly assumes the central role with one of his most knowing and subtle performances, ingeniously painting Dantès as a man who has exchanged one sort of prison for another, the latter his own hatred. The sharp, engaging screenplay is by Didier Decoin (The Chambermaid on the Titanic), and the production is directed with flashes of bold inventiveness by Josée Dayan. -Tom Keogh, Amazon. [+]
com.

Actors & Directors
  • Derek Jarman
  • Tilda Swinton
Run time: 88 min.
Creator: Tilda Swinton
Price: £15.99

Review The Last Of England - Derek Jarman [VHS] [1988] / Red Pictures:


Review Western Connection / Kamasutra [VHS] [1991]
Actors & Directors
  • Holly Body
  • Joe D'Amato
  • Mercedes
  • Kelly Trump
  • Brooke Ashley
  • Tatiana
Release date: 1994-04-11
Run time: 42 min.
Creator: James O'Connell
Price: £10.99

Review Kamasutra [VHS] [1991] / Western Connection:


Review Cinema Club / Salaam Bombay! [VHS] [1988]
Actors & Directors
  • Anita Kanwar
  • Mira Nair
  • Shafiq Syed
  • Hansa Vithal
  • Chanda Sharma
  • Raghuvir Yadav
Release date: 2003-06-16
Run time: 109 min.
Creator: Sooni Taraporevala
Price: £5.99

Review Salaam Bombay! [VHS] [1988] / Cinema Club:

Meera Nair's Salaam Bombay was her first film, and one of only three Indian films nominated for an Oscar (the others being Mother India and Lagaan). The deceptively simple documentary style hides a meticulously planned feature in which nothing is left to chance. Real street kids play the leads alongside veteran actors, such as Nana Patekar and Shaukat Azmi, as we follow Chaipau, the urchin who wants to save his 500 rupees to "go home", and his encounters with prostitutes, thugs and drug addicts among whom he finds love and companionship. The story avoids sentimentality by endowing the characters with humanity while never romanticising their plight. Nair eschews the obvious "city of contrasts" theme, presenting only the view from the street, shooting in real locations of Grant Road and its environs. This is one of the greatest presentations of Bombay to date, comparable across genres to Raghu Rai's photography or Vikram Chandra's fiction. On the DVD: Salaam Bombay on DVD includes a compelling scene-by-scene commentary, in which Nair discusses the problems of location shooting, training the children and the impact of the film on the lives of so many of its characters. The film is in Hindi with English subtitles. -Rachel Dwyer.

Review Eureka Entertainment / A Generation - Pokolenie [VHS] [1954]
Actors & Directors
  • Janusz Paluszkiewicz
  • Tadeusz Lomnicki
  • Tadeusz Janczar
  • Andrzej Wajda
  • Urszula Modrzynska
  • Ryszard Kotys
Release date: 1998-01-19
Run time: 86 min.
Creator: Bohdan Czeszko
RRP: £15.99
Price: £10.00

Review A Generation - Pokolenie [VHS] [1954] / Eureka Entertainment:


Review Palisades Tartan / Jules Et Jim [VHS] [1962]
Actors & Directors
  • Vanna Urbino
  • Jeanne Moreau
  • Henri Serre
  • Oskar Werner
  • Boris Bassiak
  • François Truffaut
Release date: 2002-08-26
Run time: 101 min.
Creator: Jean Gruault
RRP: £15.99
Price: £12.90

Review Jules Et Jim [VHS] [1962] / Palisades Tartan:

François Truffaut's third feature, though it's named for the two best friends who become virtually inseparable in pre-World War I Paris, is centred on Jeanne Moreau's Catherine, the most mysterious, enigmatic woman in his career-long gallery of rich female portraits. Adapted from the novel by Henri-Pierre Roché, Truffaut's picture explores the 30-year friendship between Austrian biologist Jules (Oskar Werner) and Parisian writer Jim (Henri Serre) and the love triangle formed when the alluring Catherine makes the duo a trio. Spontaneous and lively, a woman of intense but dynamic emotions, she becomes the axle on which their friendship turns as Jules woos her and they marry, only to find that no one man can hold her. Directed in bursts of concentrated scenes interspersed with montage sequences and pulled together by the commentary of an omniscient narrator, Truffaut layers his tragic drama with a wealth of detail. He draws on his bag of New Wave tricks for the carefree days of youth-zooms, flash cuts, freeze frames-that disappear as the marriage disintegrates during the gloom of the postwar years. Werner is excellent as Jules, a vibrant young man whose slow, melancholy slide into emotional compromise is charted in his increasingly sad eyes and resigned face, while Serre plays Jim as more of an enigma, guarded and introspective. But both are eclipsed in the glare of Moreau's radiant Catherine: impulsive, demanding, sensual, passionate, destructive, and ultimately unknowable. A masterpiece of the French New Wave and one of Truffaut's most confident and accomplished films. -Sean Axmaker.

Review Momentum Pictures / No [VHS] [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Eric Bernier
  • Robert Lepage
  • Marie Gignac
  • Anne-Marie Cadieux
  • Alexis Martin
  • Richard Fréchette
Release date: 2000-02-28
Run time: 85 min.
Creator: André Morency
RRP: £15.99
Price: £32.94

Review No [VHS] [1999] / Momentum Pictures:


Review Fabulous Films Ltd. / Monkey! - Episodes 4-6 - Monkey Swallows The Universe / The Power of Youth / Even Monsters can be People [VHS]
Actors & Directors
  • Toshiyukai Nishida
  • Masaaki Sakai
  • Daisuke Yamazaki
  • Yusuke Watanabe
Release date: 2000-04-17
Run time: 130 min.
Creator: Toshiyukai Nishida
RRP: £12.99
Price: £2.99

Review Monkey! - Episodes 4-6 - Monkey Swallows The Universe / The Power of Youth / Even Monsters can be People [VHS] / Fabulous Films Ltd.:

A loose (very loose) Japanese TV adaptation of Wu Ch'eng-en's 16th-century collection of Chinese fables, Monkey! was re-dubbed into English in the early 1980s and became required viewing for a whole generation of school children. The titular monkey (played with great enthusiasm, not to mention athleticism by Japanese comic actor and former rock star Masaaki Sakai) accompanies boy-monk Tripitaka (confusingly, a pretty actress called Masako Natsume) on his/her quest for the Indian Sutras. They pick up Sandy (Shiro Kishibe), Pigsy (Toshiyuki Nishida) and a dragon that becomes a horse along the way. The appeal of Monkey! is easier to experience than explain. It's an occasionally surreal blend of Oriental fable, knock-about martial arts, pop Buddhism and slapstick comedy. The frequent comic fight scenes are accompanied by a 70s disco-fusion soundtrack, and a narrator (English voice: Frank Duncan) uses gaps in the action to deliver inscrutable snippets of wisdom ("Even a starving camel is still bigger than a horse", "Does love mean labour even for the carp-hearted?"). Best of all, though, is the dialogue: without regard to any lip-synch niceties the English script (by David Weir) is full of idiomatic delights, jokes and double entendres. All are delivered by British actors in hilarious cod-Japanese accents (distinguished thesp Miriam Margolyes is the voice of Tripitaka). Bad special effects crown the show's cheesy, retro appeal. On the DVD: Monkey! volume 2 on DVD features the same three episodes as the VHS incarnation-"Monkey Swallows the Universe", "The Power of Youth" and "Even Monsters Can Be People"-but also a bonus previously unseen episode from the second season, "Pigsy Learns a Lesson", which is subtitled not dubbed, so if nothing else is an opportunity to hear the actors' real voices. [+]
Extra features are a stills gallery, text pieces on the principal cast, characters and episodes, Weblinks, trailers for The Water Margin and Blake's Seven and a pop-video version of the show's irrepressible main title song. -Mark Walker.

Review Warner Home Video / La Grande Illusion (1937) [VHS] [1998]
Actors & Directors
  • Eric Von Stroheim
  • Pierre Fresnay
  • Julien Carette
  • Jean Gabin
  • Marcel Dalio
Release date: 2000-05-15
Run time: 109 min.
Creator: Pierre Fresnay
RRP: £9.99
Price: £5.89

Review La Grande Illusion (1937) [VHS] [1998] / Warner Home Video:

It's long been one of the revered classics of international cinema, but there is no fine layer of dust over La Grande Illusion. Jean Renoir's film is just as vibrant, exciting and wise as it has ever been. The story is set during World War I, mostly in a couple of German POW camps, where two very different French prisoners plot to escape: the working-class officer Maréchal (Jean Gabin, the French Spencer Tracy) and the upper-class de Boieldieu (Pierre Fresnay). The suspenseful backbone of the story is formed by these escape attempts, but Renoir is primarily concerned with the way people treat each other, and especially with how class and nationality inform human relations. Most compelling of all the film's characters is the aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, unforgettably incarnated by stiff-backed Erich von Stroheim; although he runs a prison camp, von Rauffenstein cannot help but strike up a friendship with de Boieldieu, a kindred spirit from the doomed nobility. There is nothing dewy or naive about Renoir's vision (and two years after the release of this antiwar film, Europe was plunged into another world war), yet La Grande Illusion is one of those movies that makes you feel good about such long-outmoded ideas as sacrifice and brotherhood. After it won a prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1937, the Nazis declared the film "Cinematographic Enemy Number One". There can be no higher praise. -Robert Horton, Amazon. com.

Review Artificial Eye / The Ox [1992] [VHS]
Actors & Directors
  • Sven Nykvist|Max Von Sydow|Stellan Skarsgard|Ewa Froling
Release date: 1993-09-20
Run time: 88 min.
Creator: Sven Nykvist|Max Von Sydow|Stellan Skarsgard|Ewa Froling
Price: £15.99

Review The Ox [1992] [VHS] / Artificial Eye:


Review Arrow Films / Spirits Of The Dead - Histoires Extraordinaires [VHS] [1973]
Actors & Directors
  • Federico Fellini
  • Alain Delon
  • Louis Malle
  • Jane Fonda
  • James Robertson Justice
  • Roger Vadim
  • Terence Stamp
  • Brigitte Bardot
Release date: 1995-04-17
Run time: 117 min.
Creator: Edgar Allan Poe
RRP: £15.99
Price: £7.45

Review Spirits Of The Dead - Histoires Extraordinaires [VHS] [1973] / Arrow Films:


Review Kiseki Films / Sol Bianca 2 [VHS]
Actors & Directors
  • Yuriko Fuchizaki
  • Miki Itô
  • Minami Takayama
  • Yôko Matsuoka
  • Hiroki Hayashi
  • Rei Sakuma
Release date: 1996-04-15
Run time: 40 min.
Creator: Hidemi Kamata
Price: £10.99

Review Sol Bianca 2 [VHS] / Kiseki Films:


Review Connoisseur Video / The Lost Honour Of Katharina Blum [VHS] [1975]
Actors & Directors
  • Mario Adorf
  • Heinz Bennent
  • Margarethe von Trotta
  • Jürgen Prochnow
  • Volker Schlöndorff
  • Dieter Laser
  • Angela Winkler
Release date: 1995-03-13
Run time: 106 min.
Creator: Heinrich Böll
Price: £15.99

Review The Lost Honour Of Katharina Blum [VHS] [1975] / Connoisseur Video:


Review Millivres Multimedia / Dandy Dust [VHS] [1998]
Actors & Directors
  • Leonora Rogers-Wright
  • A. Hans Scheirl
  • Tres Trash Temperilli
  • Suzie Krüger
  • A. Hans Scheirl
Release date: 1999-06-07
Run time: 98 min.
Creator: Jana Cipriani
RRP: £8.99
Price: £14.95

Review Dandy Dust [VHS] [1998] / Millivres Multimedia:


Review Manga Entertainment / Gunhed - The Ultimate Battle [VHS] [1989]
Actors & Directors
  • James Brewster Thompson
  • Brenda Bakke
  • Kaori Mizushima
  • Aya Enjôji
  • Masato Harada
  • Alan Smithee
  • Masahiro Takashima
Release date: 1994-06-13
Run time: 96 min.
Creator: Jim Bannon
Price: £5.99

Review Gunhed - The Ultimate Battle [VHS] [1989] / Manga Entertainment:


Review Electric Pictures / Lift To The Scaffold [1957] [VHS]
Actors & Directors
  • Louis Malle|Jeanne Moreau|Maurice Ronet|Lino Ventura
Release date: 1994-04-05
Run time: 87 min.
Creator: Louis Malle|Jeanne Moreau|Maurice Ronet|Lino Ventura
RRP: £15.99
Price: £9.99

Review Lift To The Scaffold [1957] [VHS] / Electric Pictures:


Review Artificial Eye / Alice Et Martin [VHS] [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Jean-Pierre Lorit
  • Alexis Loret
  • André Téchiné
  • Carmen Maura
  • Mathieu Amalric
  • Juliette Binoche
Release date: 2000-04-17
Run time: 121 min.
Creator: Olivier Assayas
RRP: £15.99
Price: £14.95

Review Alice Et Martin [VHS] [1999] / Artificial Eye:

Staring a radiant Juliette Binoche and first-time actor Alexis Loret, Alice et Martin portrays a love affair that blossoms between the two protagonists and the effects on the relationship of a notable age gap and Martin's tortured past. André Téchiné has delivered some of the most delicate character pieces in recent French cinema, most notably the coming-of-age drama Wild Reeds. However, Alice et Martin, authored with help from Olivier Assayas (Irma Vep), never quite comes together as smoothly as his best work; it ricochets from lovely romantic flirtations to tortured psychodrama to family melodrama while Téchiné's oblique, reserved direction observes without penetrating the heart of the drama. Loret's Martin is more enigma than character, but Mathieu Amalric portral of Martin's long lost brother shows the same shaggy, understated charm he displayed in Late August, Early September and Binoche brings a sensitivity and toughness to the emotionally scuffed Alice. Her radiant presence gives the film its moments of emotional frisson a discreet, subtle power. -Sean Axmaker, Amazon. com.

Review Made in Hong Kong / Armour Of God [VHS] [1986]
Actors & Directors
  • Rosamund Kwan
  • Jackie Chan
  • Jackie Chan
  • Alan Tam
Release date: 1999-09-06
Run time: 94 min.
Creator: Alan Tam
RRP: £13.99
Price: £6.99

Review Armour Of God [VHS] [1986] / Made in Hong Kong:


Review Palisades Tartan TVT 1088 / Olivier, Olivier [VHS] [1991]
Actors & Directors
  • Brigitte Roüan
  • François Cluzet
  • Jean-François Stévenin
  • Agnieszka Holland
  • Frédéric Quiring
  • Faye Gatteau
Release date: 2003-06-01
Run time: 104 min.
Creator: Yves Lapointe
RRP: £15.99
Price: £19.99

Review Olivier, Olivier [VHS] [1991] / Palisades Tartan TVT 1088:


Review Arrow Films / Les Biches [VHS] [1969]
Actors & Directors
  • Jacqueline Sassard
  • Jean-Louis Trintignant
  • Serge Bento
  • Stéphane Audran
  • Claude Chabrol
  • Nane Germon
Release date: 2000-01-17
Run time: 94 min.
Creator: Paul Gégauff
RRP: £15.99
Price: £4.29

Review Les Biches [VHS] [1969] / Arrow Films:


Browse World Cinema:

Models & Brands:
The Count Of Monte Cristo [VHS] [1998], The Last Of England - Derek Jarman [VHS] [1988], Kamasutra [VHS] [1991], Salaam Bombay! [VHS] [1988], A Generation - Pokolenie [VHS] [1954], Jules Et Jim [VHS] [1962], No [VHS] [1999], Monkey! - Episodes 4-6 - Monkey Swallows The Universe / The Power of Youth / Even Monsters can be People [VHS], La Grande Illusion (1937) [VHS] [1998], The Ox [1992] [VHS], Spirits Of The Dead - Histoires Extraordinaires [VHS] [1973], Sol Bianca 2 [VHS], The Lost Honour Of Katharina Blum [VHS] [1975], Dandy Dust [VHS] [1998], Gunhed - The Ultimate Battle [VHS] [1989], Lift To The Scaffold [1957] [VHS], Alice Et Martin [VHS] [1999], Armour Of God [VHS] [1986], Olivier, Olivier [VHS] [1991], Les Biches [VHS] [1969]

Top headlines:
Search 
DVD Rental: try it for free