"Actor: Ian Ho"

• XXX (Xtreme Edition) | DVD | (18/04/2005) from £3.69   |  Saving you £16.30 (441.73%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Vin Diesel stars as an extreme sports athlete called Triple X hired by a government agency who turn him into a secret agent and send him on a covert mission to destroy a dangerous terrorist cell.

• 37 Days: The Countdown To World War 1 (BBC) | Blu Ray | (09/06/2014) from £6.99   |  Saving you £18.00 (257.51%)   |  RRP £24.99

  37 Days37 Days: The Countdown to World War 1 is a masterful tense and gripping three 'part political thriller set within the corridors of power in Whitehall and Berlin tracks the unfolding crisis through the eyes of leading politicians and civil servants struggling to prevent the world's first global war. A stellar cast led by Ian McDiarmid and Tim Piggott-Smith reveal the complex behind-closed-doors story of the countdown to World War One in this political thriller following the catastrophic chain of events that led from the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28th June 1914 to the declaration of war between Britain and Germany on 4th August. One Month In SummerThe British Foreign Office led by foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey receives news of an assassination in the Balkans. In Berlin the Kaiser thinks he can exploit it for his own advantage. One Week In JulyWar in Europe is becoming a real possibility. Under pressure from the cabinet the British foreign secretary unravels a tangled web of intrigue between Austria Germany Russia and France while the German military command conspires to force the Kaiser's hand. Who will gain the upper hand? One Long WeekendThe last hours of peace. With the continental powers pushed to the brink Sir Edward Grey seems unsure of whether to keep Britain out of the conflict. Desperate negotiations resignations and a battle of wills in the Cabinet reach a crescendo with Germany's ultimatum to Belgium. Which way will Britain go?

• Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood Live From Madison Square Garden | Blu Ray | (21/02/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  History rocked and rock made historyduring a sold-out three-gig stand atMadison Square Garden in late February 2008 when icons Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood performed a concert togetherfor the first time since their all-too-brief days in the legendary Blind Faith in 1969. Whether they will ever team again is unknown. But with Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood Live From Madison Square Garden, on this Blu Ray, fans everywhere are able to experience the sound and the glory of a performance on that famous stage by two of rock's greatest artists.

• School For Scoundrels / The Green Man | DVD | (14/04/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  In School for Scoundrels wimpy Ian Carmichael wants to impress girls and get one over on all-round show-off and cad Terry Thomas (playing gloriously to type). Discovering Alastair Simms' unorthodox school Carmichael happily enrols and learns the quaint tricks of the day for securing the admiration of a fair lady. Ultimately as a star pupil he teaches the Master a thing or two about true love when everything turns out just fine in the end. Appealing to all male sensibilities is the idea of a magical set of simple rules for winning someone's affections. Set in the tweed-rich environment of an English boarding school makes this an even quainter notion. To watch this classic comedy is to cock one's snoot at womanisers everywhere while unavoidably making a mental list of anything that might actually work! The three central performances are brilliantly realised, particularly the role reversal between Carmichael and Thomas. Try playing a tennis match after a viewing without calling "hard cheese". -Paul Tonks

• American Pie | DVD | (01/03/2010) from £4.39   |  Saving you £8.60 (195.90%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Jim (Jason Biggs) is just Like any other healthy, red-blooded guy -- who is also a virgin -- he's desperate.

• Time Bandits | DVD | (30/09/2002) from £9.07   |  Saving you £13.91 (228.78%)   |  RRP £19.99

  With Time Bandits, only his second movie as director, Terry Gilliam's barbed humour and hyperactive visual imagination got themselves gloriously into full gear. Sketched out in a matter of weeks over Michael Palin's kitchen table while Gilliam struggled to get his dream project Brazil off the ground, this is a children's film made by a director who "hates kid films" and all the "mawkish sentimental crap" that goes with them. The 11-year-old hero, Kevin, finds himself lugged out of his suburban bedroom and off through a series of wormholes in time and space by a gang of rapacious, bickering midgets in search of loot, en route encountering (and casually despoiling) a gallery of eminent historical figures that include Agamemnon, Napoleon and Robin Hood, along with assorted ogres, giants and monsters. As co-screenwriters, Gilliam and Palin cheerfully filch ideas from everyone from Homer and Jonathan Swift to Lewis Carroll and Walt Disney, while the sets--as always with Gilliam--ingeniously work towering miracles on puny budgets. "The whole point of fairy tales", according to Gilliam, "is to frighten the kids" and Time Bandits taps into some archetypal nightmare imagery. But the whole farrago is much too good-humoured to be seriously scary. Not least of the movie's pleasures are a series of ripe cameos from the likes of Ian Holm as an irascible Bonaparte, Sean Connery good-humouredly spoofing his own image as Agamemnon, John Cleese's version of Robin Hood as inanely condescending minor royalty ("So you're a robber too! Jolly good!"), David Warner hamming it up gleefully as the Evil Genius, and the great Ralph Richardson playing the Supreme Being as a tetchy public-school headmaster. On the DVD: Time Bandits on disc comes with a generous wealth of extras. Along with the expected trailer--sent up Python-style by a disaffected voice-over--we get excerpts from Gilliam's storyboard and notated script, filmographies for Gilliam, Palin, Connery and David Rappaport (the leader of the vertically challenged gang), stills, production shots, a scrapbook with cast photos and drawings, notes on the film and plenty more background data, plus a cheerfully relaxed 27-minute interview with Gilliam and Palin. There's also an informative and appealingly unpretentious full-length commentary shared between Gilliam, Palin, Cleese, Warner and Craig Warnock, who played Kevin. The transfer, clean and crisp, is in the original full-width ratio, and there's a choice of Dolby Stereo or Dolby 5.1 sound. --Philip Kemp

• Brothers In Law | DVD | (04/06/2007) from £8.00   |  Saving you £4.99 (62.38%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Newly qualified barrister Roger Thursby joins his flatmate as a trainee at a London law firm. Thrown in at the deep end by the absent-minded senior partner his first few appearances in court border on the disastrous as he encounters a succession of cantankerous judges.

• Sam - Series 3 - Part 3 | DVD | (07/08/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  An investigation is called for when a mysterious visitor is crushed to death at Plummer And Sons.

• Alice Through The Looking Glass | DVD | (07/11/2011) from £8.98   |  Saving you £7.00 (116.86%)   |  RRP £12.99

  This magical live-action adaptation of Lewis Carrol's classic tale features an all-star cast headed by Kate Beckinsale Steve Coogan Ian Holm and Geoffrey Palmer. Alice returns to the strange world of Wonderland where she joins the Red Queen in a giant game of chess and once again encounters all the weird and wonderful characters: the odd-ball twins Tweedledum and Tweedledee the White Queen the Red and White Knights Humpty Dumpty and the scary Jabberwocky. As she continues her adventure things become curiouser and curiouser.

• The McKenzie Break | DVD | (05/04/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In the closing days of WWII German POWs plot to escape from their Scottish camp with a plan to rejoin the U-Boat fleet from where they were captured...

• Robin And Marian | DVD | (12/08/2002) from £12.63   |  Saving you £0.36 (2.85%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Robin Hood (Connery) is an old man when he returns with his best friend Little John to England after the Crusades. Maid Marian (Hepburn) has entered a nunnery King Richard is a raving lunatic his Brother John a moron and the age of great adventure has seemed to have passed Robin by. But when The Sheriff of Nottingham (Shaw) once again threatens Sherwood Robin gathers his faithful men and band of peasants to fight oppression in this high-spirited adventure in which Robin Hood and Maid Marian rediscover their love...

• Sherlock Holmes - The Sign Of Four | DVD | (12/04/2005) from £14.23   |  Saving you £-5.25 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  This riveting mystery is a whodunit at its best. The legendary British sleuth Sherlock Holmes accompanied by his loyal sidekick Watson become wrapped up in yet another jewel-centered mystery when a beautiful young woman finds herself the surprised recipient of the world's second largest diamond. The master detective is summoned to figure out just who sent her the jewel and why.

• Sharknado - The Ultimate Collection | Blu Ray | (26/02/2024) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Alien Quadrilogy | DVD | (08/12/2003) from £20.99   |  Saving you £39.00 (185.80%)   |  RRP £59.99

  The Alien Quadrilogy is a nine-disc box set devoted to the four Alien films. Although previously available on DVD as the Alien Legacy, here the films have been repackaged with vastly more extras and with upgraded sound and vision. For anyone who hasn't been in hypersleep for the last 25 years this series needs no introduction, though for the first time each film now comes in both original and "Special Edition" form. Alien (1979) was so perfect it didn't need fixing, and Ridley Scott's 2003 Director's Cut is fiddling for the sake of it. Watch once then return to the majestic, perfectly paced original. Conversely the Special Edition of James Cameron's Aliens (1986) is the definitive version, though it's nice finally to have the theatrical cut on DVD for comparison. Most interesting is the alternative Alien3 (1992). This isn't a "director's cut"--David Fincher refused to have any involvement with this release--but a 1991 work-print that runs 29 minutes longer than the theatrical version, and has now been restored, remastered and finished-off with (unfortunately) cheap new CGI. Still, it's truly fascinating, offering a different insight into a flawed masterpiece. The expanded opening is visually breathtaking, the central firestorm is much longer, and a subplot involving Paul McGann's character adds considerable depth to the story. The ending is also subtly but significantly different. Alien Resurrection (1997) was always a mess with a handful of brilliant scenes, and the Special Edition just makes it eight minutes longer. On the DVD: Alien Quadrilogy offers all films except Alien3 with DTS soundtracks, the latter having still fine Dolby Digital 5.1 presentation. All four films sound fantastic, with much low-level detail revealed for the first time. Each is anamorphically enhanced at the correct original aspect ratio, and the prints and transfers are superlative. Every film offers a commentary that lends insight into the creative process--though the Scott-only commentary and isolated music score from the first Alien DVD release are missing here--and there are subtitles for hard of hearing both for the films and the commentaries. Each movie is complemented by a separate disc packed with hours of seriously detailed documentaries (all presented at 4:3 with clips letterboxed), thousands of photos, production stills and storyboards, giving a level of inside information for the dedicated buff only surpassed by the Lord of the Rings extended DVD sets. A ninth DVD compiles miscellaneous material, including a Channel 4 hour-long documentary and even all the extras from the old Alien laserdisc. Exhaustive hardly beings to describe the Alien Quadrilogy, a set which establishes the new DVD benchmark for retrospective releases and which looks unlikely to be surpassed for some time. --Gary S Dalkin

• Brazil | Blu Ray | (05/12/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Acclaimed story of an unambitious civil servant who escapes the harsh realities of a totalitarian future with frequent daydreams. Jonathan Pryce and Robert De Niro star with Michael Palin and Bob Hoskins in this chilling black comedy directed by former Monty Python member Terry Gilliam.

• Too Late The Hero | DVD | (08/04/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Set on a Pacific island in 1942, Too Late the Hero is a hard-as-nails "men on a mission" war movie: a group of British soldiers have to traverse the New Hebrides to destroy a Japanese radio transmitter, then get back to safety while being hunted all the way. Inevitably everything goes wrong, but director Robert (The Dirty Dozen) Aldrich turns the book of WWII movie clichés on its head and springs some unnerving surprises. Even the token American star, Cliff Robertson--echoing William Holden's grafted-on role in The Bridge on the River Kwai--proves less than obviously heroic, while an outstanding Michael Caine brings considerable depth to his usual cynical cockney. Henry Fonda gets heavily billed for a brief guest appearance, but there are star performances such fine British character actors as Denholm Elliot, Ian Bannen, Ronald Fraser and Lance Percival. This portrait of battle-worn men offers greater complexity than Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, while the jungle trek was more recently paralleled in Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line. Only the attitudes--more 1970 than 1942--detract from Aldrich's tellingly realistic vision, which with a thoughtfully ironic script and a succession of tense set pieces and brutal firefights, builds to a harrowing climax. On the DVD: The picture is presented at approximately 1.7:1, reformatted from the original 2.2:1 70mm theatrical presentation. Despite approximately 25 per cent of the original image being missing, this loss is only really noticeable in a few scenes. Apart from the occasional fleck, the print is in superb condition, and despite the lack of anamorphic enhancement the picture is sharp, detailed and has excellent colour. The surround sound (not mono as listed on the packaging) is highly effective, with the tension being increased by a considerable amount of the music coming from the rear speakers. The special features are simply a few static pages of biographical and production notes. --Gary S. Dalkin

• Repulsion | DVD | (25/08/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Carol a young girl living in Sixties' London is repelled yet fascinated by men. Her radiant beauty attracts the opposite sex but she shrinks from their advances. Her days are spent in an intensely feminine atmosphere: working in a beauty salon and clinging to her sister Helen for love. But as she incarcerates herself in her sinister shadowy flat men begin to invade her dreams night and day mixing her terror with delight as bizarre hallucinations take hold of her mind. The

• Alien | Blu Ray | (17/04/2019) from £13.08   |  Saving you £2.91 (22.25%)   |  RRP £15.99

  By transplanting the classic haunted house scenario into space, Ridley Scott, together with screenwriters Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett, produced a work of genuinely original cinematic sci-fi with Alien that, despite the passage of years and countless inferior imitations, remains shockingly fresh even after repeated viewing. Scott's legendary obsession with detail ensures that the setting is thoroughly conceived, while the Gothic production design and Jerry Goldsmith's wonderfully unsettling score produce a sense of disquiet from the outset: everything about the spaceship Nostromo--from Tupperware to toolboxes-seems oddly familiar yet disconcertingly ... well, alien.Nothing much to speak of happens for at least the first 30 minutes, and that in a way is the secret of the film's success: the audience has been nervously peering round every corner for so long that by the time the eponymous beast claims its first victim, the release of pent-up anxiety is all the more effective. Although Sigourney Weaver ultimately takes centre-stage, the ensemble cast is uniformly excellent. The remarkably low-tech effects still look good (better in many places than the CGI of the sequels), while the nightmarish quality of H.R. Giger's bio-mechanical creature and set design is enhanced by camerawork that tantalises by what it doesn't reveal.On the DVD: The director, audibly pausing to puff on his cigar at regular intervals, provides an insightful commentary which, in tandem with superior sound and picture, sheds light into some previously unexplored dark recesses of this much-analysed, much-discussed movie (why the crew eat muesli, for example, or where the "rain" in the engine room is coming from). Deleted scenes include the famous "cocoon" sequence, the completion of the creature's insect-like life-cycle for which cinema audiences had to wait until 1986 and James Cameron's Aliens. Isolated audio tracks, a picture gallery of production artwork and a "making of" documentary complete a highly attractive DVD package. --Mark Walker

• Conviction - The Complete Series | DVD | (19/09/2005) from £13.98   |  Saving you £6.00 (50.04%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Exploring the idea that everyone has the ability to kill and investigating what it is that can trigger the reaction in any of us Conviction is a dark and innovative drama. Penned by Bill Gallagher (Clocking Off) Brothers Chrissie (William Ash) and Ray (Nicholas Gleaves) are part of a team of CID officers who have a constant battle against a growing sense of vigilantism on their patch. However the murder of a 12-year-old girl heightens the tensions and le

• The Fifth Element | UMD | (05/12/2005) from £8.08   |  Saving you £7.91 (97.90%)   |  RRP £15.99

  In the year 2257 a planet-sized sphere of supreme evil is approaching the earth at relentless speed threatening to exterminate every living organism unless four ancient stones representing the elements of earth wind fire and water are united with the mysterious fifth element.From Luc Besson the acclaimed director of 'Leon' and 'Nikita' comes a film that turns science fiction inside out.