Welcome to DVD-Movie-Sale.co.uk!
DVD Movie Sale is a comprehensive DVD site where you can search for any movie by genre, film title, actors name or director. Complete with full film information & synopsis as well as being able to compare prices for your favourite DVD from leading retail stores. You even have the opportunity to include your personal film reviews or give your personal ratings with numerous chances to win dvd related prizes.
WIN DVDS by being amongst the first to review this DVD. Reviewing DVDs earns you bonus entries and lets you WIN DVDs!Please login before reviewing this DVD. If you're a new user, register for free and enter to WIN FREE DVDs!
Very few first-time film directors would have been capable of making such a triumphant adaptation of Henry V; but a still-youthful Kenneth Branagh's years of stage experience paid off handsomely and his 1989 version qualifies as a genuine masterpiece, the kind of film that comes along once in a decade. He eschews the theatricality of Laurence Olivier's stirring, fondly remembered 1945 adaptation to establish his own rules: Branagh plays it down and dirty, seeing the Bard's play through revisionist eyes, framing it as an anti-war story in contrast to Olivier's patriotic spectacle. Branagh gives us harsh close-ups of muddied, bloody men, and of himself as Henry, his hardened mouth and wilful eyes revealing much about the personal cost of war. Not that the director-star doesn't provide lighter moments: his scenes introducing the French Princess Katherine (Emma Thompson) trying to learn English quickly from her maid are delightful.
What may be the crowning glory of Branagh's adaptation comes when the dazed leader wanders across the battlefield, not even sure who has won. As King Hal carries a dead boy (a young Christian Bale) over the hacked bodies of both the English and French, a panorama of blood and mud and death greet the viewer as Branagh opens up the scene and Patrick Doyle's rousing hymn "Non nobis, Domine" provides marvellous counterpoint (like the director, the composer was another filmic first-timer). A more potent expression of the price of victory could scarcely be imagined. --Rochelle O'Gorman, Amazon.com
Aspect Ratio: | 4:3 Full Frame |
Main Language: | English |
Region: | Region 2 |
Special Features: | Interactive Menus, Scene Access |
Year: | 1945 |
Release Date: | April 14, 2003 |
Runtime: | 137 minutes |
Certification: | |
Catalogue Number: | 37115 04963 |
Label: | Classic Collection |
Keywords: | Classic, Book, Henry, General, Drama, V, Based |
Genre: | Drama |