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Site created 12/15/97.
page added: 4/21/05
The Spin Sheet
DVD reviews by Bill Hunt, editor of The Digital Bits
| As
a film, House of Flying Daggers
is lush and visually gorgeous. Directed by HERO's
Zhang Yimou, the story here is less intellectually rewarding than
HERO, but in some ways more
emotionally satisfying. This is a smaller, more personal story with
three basic components - the initial detective plot, Jin and Mei's
love story and flight from justice, and the larger conflict between
the government soldiers and the House of Flying Daggers. Each is
interesting in its own right. What Daggers
lacks however, is a strong dramatic thru-line to unite these
elements. While HERO was less
obviously romantic, it's deceptively complex narrative purposefully
built to a climax. Daggers
leads you to believe that its story is going to be every bit as
epic. But just as you get to the point where the larger conflict
seems about to resolve, the film narrows its focus to the resolution
of the personal story instead. That's not necessarily bad, it's just
not what you're likely expecting. It also leaves Daggers
feeling more than a little a bit disjointed narratively. Still, the film is every bit the visual masterpiece that HERO is. While the previous film was a study in color, movement and often stark simplicity, here the images are more intricate and detailed. Daggers is a film that you could easily enjoy without any dialogue or subtitles - music and motion is all you really need. The wire-fu is just as complex and unbelievable as HERO or Crouching Tiger, and its an absolute thrill to watch. This film's final sequence alone - a powerful and personal battle in the snow - is worth sitting through the film for all by itself. Sadly, I'm surprised and disappointed to say that the video quality on Sony's DVD release doesn't even begin to do this film justice. Daggers is presented in anamorphic widescreen video, but this seems like a case of way too much material crammed onto a single, dual-layered disc. In addition to the film, well over an hour of behind-the-scenes video has been included as well. For any other film on DVD, that might be fine. But Daggers is so visually intricate and complex that the amount of digital compression needed to shoehorn everything on to a single disc has resulted in an image that's rife with artifacting. The colors are also not as vibrant as they should be (or would be on, for example, one of Sony's Superbit releases). I can only assume that a Superbit release is already planned, because this video presentation just doesn't cut it at all. The film's sound at least fares better on this disc, with a very strong Dolby Digital 5.1 surround mix. The sound stage is big and wide, with plenty of atmospheric imaging and reasonably active surrounds. Dialogue is clear (available in both the original Chinese, and dubbed English and French), the music is well blended and there's good bass reinforcement in the LFE. You'll be most pleased with the sound quality in all the obvious places - the "echo game" sequence, the battle scenes, etc. I suspect the DTS mix that would have been available on a Superbit release would be a bit smoother and more immersive, but the Dolby offering is quite good and will more than do in the meantime. The real shame of this DVD is that the extras are surprisingly good - certainly more than I expected to get. You have a thoughtful and interesting feature-length audio commentary with the director and actress Ziyi Zhang (Mei). There's also a solid 45-minute documentary on the making of the film, as well as a short video clip on the film's visual effects. When you access either the commentary or the documentary, you automatically get on-screen English subtitle translation (these features were produced in the production's original Chinese). Also available on this disc is a music video for Lovers, the film's closing theme song, as well as a production photo gallery, a gallery of costume photos, preview trailers (for Daggers and four other films) and a set of 6 storyboard-to-film comparisons (it's amazing how closely the final film matches the artwork). Sony should really have released House of Flying Daggers as a 2-disc set, with the film presented in Superbit quality. Maybe it will be yet... or maybe Sony's waiting to wow people with this film on Blu-ray Disc instead. In don't know. In any case, what we get on this disc is a decidedly mixed bag - a good film with mediocre video quality but nice extras. I know that's not exactly a recommendation, but I'm afraid it's the best I can do. |
| Bring
on the Night is far from the greatest concert film ever,
but it is a wonderful study in character. Everything that is
Sting... everything that motivates him, all his talent and ambition
and subtle emotion... is on display in this film. What's fascinating
is to see the way other, equally talented musicians react and adjust
to his personality, pushing him in new directions and vise versa.
More interesting than the performance footage itself, which IS quite
good, are the countless scenes of this group interacting creatively
and personally. You'll see Sting trying to bend the group to his
will, and also you'll see the group pushing him out of his comfort
zone. You'll see them forcing a more playful, creative side out of
Sting. One minute they're rehearsing Fortress
Around Your Heart or Love Is
the Seventh Wave per Sting's direction, and the next the
band is gleefully jamming out the theme to The
Flintstones (to which Sting knows all the words, despite
protests to the contrary) or teasing Sting about being the British
George Jefferson. When the filmmaker asks Sting's wife, Trudy
Styler, at one point what effect these musicians are having on him,
she gleefully responds, "They're having a tremendous effect on
him. He's very happy. He's very funny. He's lightened up a lot. He's
not reading so many books..." You'll even see the delivery of
one of Sting's sons during this film (Styler was pregnant at the
time and actually went into labor the night of the first concert -
talk about nervous energy). This new DVD from Universal Music offers the film in anamorphic widescreen video. The quality is quite good - better than what I expected. The film is grainy and a little too edgy at times, but color and contrast are both excellent. The print could have used a good cleaning, but otherwise I'm fairly happy with this video presentation. On the audio side, this disc REALLY excels. Both Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 surround mixes are included. Each sounds fantastic. In fact I'd say there are only very subtle differences between the two. Both feature wide and surprisingly immersive sound stages, with lots of subtle, atmospheric use of the rear channels during the concert and rehearsal footage, and very solid bass. This film has never sounded this good before. Surprisingly, the disc includes a few extras as well. You get three music videos (for Bring on the Night, If You Love Somebody Set Them Free and Russians - I would have liked Fortress Around Your Heart as well, but that's a nitpick). You also get the film's original theatrical trailer, a photo gallery that includes audio of original radio spots for the film, and a programmable playlist option that lets you choose the order in which you'd like songs to play (if you wish). If you're a fan of Sting and his music, Bring on the Night is absolutely required viewing. The thing you begin to understand about this guy is that while, yes... he does have a massive ego, he's easily got the talent and ambition to match it. You get the sense that Sting's a very restless guy. He keeps pushing himself to try new things, to break new ground, to force himself into new creative endeavors... simply because that's just who he is. It's what he HAS to do. For fans of his previous efforts, like The Police, that's somewhat disappointing. But it's also what makes his music interesting and gives it continued relevance. One can only wonder, what's next? Bill Hunt billhunt@thedigitalbits.com |
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