"Actor: Michael Chan"

• The Sopranos: Series 1 (Vol. 1) | DVD | (16/04/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The Sopranos, writer-producer-director David Chase's extraordinary television series, is nominally an urban gangster drama, but its true impact strikes closer to home: This ambitious TV series chronicles a dysfunctional, suburban American family in bold relief. And for protagonist Tony Soprano, there is the added complexity posed by heading twin families, his collegial mob clan and his own, nouveau riche brood.The series' brilliant first season is built around what Tony learns when, whipsawed between those two worlds, he finds himself plunged into depression and seeks psychotherapy--a gesture at odds with his mid-level capo's machismo, yet instantly recognisable as a modern emotional test. With analysis built into the very spine of the show's elaborate episodic structure, creator Chase and his formidable corps of directors, writers and actors weave an unpredictable series of parallel and intersecting plot arcs that twist from tragedy to farce to social realism. While creating for a smaller screen, they enjoy a far larger canvas than a single movie would afford, and the results, like the very best episodic television, attain a richness and scope far closer to a novel than movies normally get.Unlike Francis Coppola's operatic dramatisation of Mario Puzo's Godfather epic, The Sopranos sustains a poignant, even mundane intimacy in its focus on Tony, brought to vivid life by James Gandolfini's mercurial performance. Alternately seductive, exasperated, fearful and murderous, Gandolfini is utterly convincing even when executing brutal shifts between domestic comedy and dramatic violence. Both he and the superb team of Italian-American actors recruited as his loyal (and, sometimes, not-so-loyal) henchman and their various "associates" make this mob as credible as the evocative Bronx and New Jersey locations where the episodes were filmed.The first season's other life force is Livia Soprano, Tony's monstrous, meddlesome mother. As Livia, the late Nancy Marchand eclipses her long career of patrician performances to create an indelibly earthy, calculating matriarch who shakes up both families; Livia also serves as foil and rival to Tony's loyal, usually level-headed wife, Carmela (Edie Falco). Lorraine Bracco makes Tony's therapist, Dr Melfi, a convincing confidante, by turns "professional", perceptive and sexy; the duo's therapeutic relationship is also depicted with uncommon accuracy. Such grace notes only enrich what is not merely an aesthetic high point for commercial television, but an absorbing film masterwork that deepens with subsequent screenings. --Sam Sutherland, Amazon.com

• And Now You're Dead | DVD | (23/04/2001) from £4.00   |  Saving you £11.99 (299.75%)   |  RRP £15.99

  And Now You're Dead may nominally be a heist movie about two rival gangs out to steal a diamond, but in reality it's an excuse for a series of exceptional action set-pieces as only Hong Kong cinema knows how to do. The film is actually set in Prague and features both a mixed Chinese and European cast, and some fairly horrendous dubbing. Fortunately no one is going to be watching for the dialogue, and the plot--assorted gangsters betray each other, while others find friendship and redemption--has been replayed endlessly since John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (1986). While Michael Wong makes an acceptable Chow Yun Fat substitute as professional thief Marty, Shannon Lee's ruthless assassin is a revelation. She is Bruce Lee's daughter, and having already appeared in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993) and Blade (1998), she delivers perhaps the toughest action heroine since Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor in T2. It's a breathtaking performance, especially in a deliriously extended police station battle which recalls the original Terminator. Overlook the clumsy comic relief and the sub-Bond finale, and settle back to enjoy an insanely frenzied bloodbath packed with over-the-top stunts and razor-sharp martial arts. --Gary S. Dalkin

• Legacy Of Rage | DVD | (19/09/2001) from £49.99   |  Saving you £-44.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Brandon (Brandon Lee) is a tough young man working by day as a car compactor in the auto junkyard and by night as a waiter. Good looking and skilled in martial arts Brandon has one major weakness an unceasing desire to use his might to fight for justice. A so-called friend Michael (Wong) manages to get Brandon framed for the slaughter of a cop and consequently sent to prison. In jail he becomes a close friend of a clever small-time crook called Hoi after coming to Hoi’s aid during a fight with some other inmates. When Brandon learns how he was set up by Michael he and Hoi try unsuccessfully to break out of jail. Six years later they are released and by now Michael has become a Mafia boss leading an army of bloodthirsty thugs. Having armed themselves with the latest weapons Brandon and Hoi declare war on Michael. The final confrontation escalates into a bloodbath that will determine their ultimate fate!

• The Dangerous Lives Of Altar Boys | DVD | (28/06/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  After being caught drawing an obscene comic book a group of Catholic school friends plan a prank to make them local legends...

• Casper - A Spirited Beginning / Casper Meets Wendy | DVD | (09/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  A Spirited Beginning Casper gets caught up in adventure at Ghost Central Station... Casper Meets Wendy An evil warlord discovers that a witch called Wendy is more powerful then he so he sends his minions to capture her and send her to a magical abyss but he doesn't count on the intervention of Casper...

• The Ghost | DVD | (11/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £7.99

  Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa and Michael Madsen star in the action packed martial arts thriller about a mysterious young woman who becomes a legendary assasin for the Chinese underworld. Jing (Chung Lai) is a strikingly beautiful woman who is highly skilled in weaponry and the martial arts. After completing a dangerous mission involving a renegade mafia boss she goes undercover as an internet bride in Los Angeles. Using his corrupt police relationships and a ruthless team of bounty hunters the Mafia boss is determined to locate and destroy his enemies most secret weapon...Jing.

• Purple Storm | DVD | (21/05/2001) from £11.46   |  Saving you £-5.47 (-91.30%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Terrorist Soong Chow's son Todd sustains a serious head injury but wakes from his coma to find he's been given a new life... Produced by action movie legend Jackie Chan this is one of the most acclaimed films in Hong Kong movie making history and winner of 10 awards at the year 2000 Hong Kong Critics Awards & Golden Horse Film Festival!

• The Homecoming | DVD | (05/07/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  When Teddy (Jayston) brings his wife Ruth (Marchant) home to meet his family for the first time murky secrets are revealed and old wounds are reopened... The American Film Theatre production of Harold Pinter's play features direction from Peter Hall and showcases Ian Holm giving one of the finest performances of his career as vicious thug Lenny.

• Britten: Death In Venice | DVD | (28/02/2001) from £22.15   |  Saving you £2.84 (12.82%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Britten's last opera, Death in Venice will always be associated with the two voices for which the major parts in it were written. It is the achievement of Robert Tear and Alan Opie, in this magisterial performance by Graeme Jenkins with the Glyndebourne touring company, to produce telling performances that are entirely separate from our memories. Tear's Aschenbach is more bull-like than Peter Pears' moralist dreamer; his drift into sentimental eroticisation of the boy Tadzio upsets him as much for the weakness it reveals as for the collapse of his virtue. Alan Opie is as much of a virtuoso as John Shirley-Quirk in the multiple roles that culminate in the corrupting voice of Dionysus--the hotelier who persuades Aschenbach to stay, the barber who gives him a toupee and paints his face, the street entertainer, the rake who flirts with sailors; the otherworldly counter-tenor of Michael Chance is spookily right as Apollo. The scenes for dancers manage to be at once dreams of the erotic and plausible adolescent sea-side wrestling; the direction by Stephen Lawless and Martha Clarke manages to capture the mistiness of the piece from which fate and strangeness suddenly emerge. On the DVD: The DVD has subtitles in German, French and Spanish, as well as an acoustic which brings out the subtleties of Britten's string, brass and percussion in this difficult work. --Roz Kaveney

• Death Factory | DVD | (23/06/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This dark and decrepit factory was once used to make deadly experimental chemicals. One of the workers contracted a grim virus and the company denied responsibility. The ill worker quit her job once she started to physically mutate. As the time went by she returned to the factory a half-human creature driven mad and craving human blood to survive. In an orgy of bloodshed she maliciously slaughtered all of her co-workers. The vile creature disappeared and the factory was shut down.

• Life With Mikey | DVD | (19/07/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Mikey is a former child star having a little trouble with his new role as a kids' talent agent. He's desperate to find a way to keep his third-rate talent agency from going under when he meets Angie a young con artist. With her streetwise smarts she's a natural for TV commercials and could be their ticket to the big time; that is if they don't drive each other crazy first! Count on big laughs with Life With Mikey a fun filled comedy treat that's sure to entertain everyone!

• Phantasm III - Lord Of The Dead | DVD | (05/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Thirteen years after the original nightmare began Mike and Reggie reunite with the spirit of Mike's dead brother and are pursued by The Tall Man through warped dimensions of space and time. Who Will reign supreme? Prepared to be scared witless as the fine line between the living and the dead snaps with a vengeance!

• Young And Dangerous 2 | DVD | (27/03/2000) from £14.78   |  Saving you £5.21 (35.25%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Returning in the second kinetic outing in the series Chan Ho Nam has become a branch leader within the Hung Hing Society celebrating by launching his first club with childhood sweetheart Smartie into the ambivalent festives of a flourishing triad society Taiwanese figure-head Liu King arrives to form an uneasy alliance with the Hung Hing Society. And in tow comes with him his Japanese mistress Ting Siu Yiu with whom ""Chicken"" has become entangled with whilst on the run in Taiw

• Spice World - the Movie | DVD | (01/10/1999) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  One of the reasons that the Spice Girls remain so much fun is that in the great British tradition, they don't take themselves too seriously. Like The Beatles before them, the girls are more than happy to take pot-shots at their own manufactured image, something that Spiceworld: The Movie revels in. It doesn't hurt, of course, that plenty of others are along for the ride: Richard E. Grant chews scenery as the road manager; Meat Loaf is the kindly, ever-reliable bus driver; Elvis Costello (!) makes a tongue-in-cheek cameo; and Roger Moore is... well, bizarre. The plot, as such, is merely a convenience, somehow tying together the girls' first-ever live concert, a pregnant friend, a documentary film crew, a non-Spice love story, and something or other about a tabloid photographer. But that's not the point--what matters here is a surprisingly deft touch by director Bob Spiers and a script that refuses to take anything too seriously; the result is a gentle self-parody that knows just how far to take the joke. --Randy Silver

• With Or Without You | DVD | (10/12/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  With or Without You works as an above-average television drama; but that's about the height of its ambition. It's strange that Michael Winterbottom, director of the hard-edged, bitter Welcome to Sarajevo (1997) and the grandiose snowy western The Claim (2000) should have bothered with anything as routine and undemanding. Perhaps its greatest distinction is that it's set in present-day Belfast without so much as a mention of the Troubles. The plot is a bog-standard romantic triangle. Rosie and Vincent, who have been married five years or so, want a baby, but nothing's happening. It doesn't help that Rosie's older sister has sprogs burgeoning like mushrooms wherever you look. Then up pops a figure from Rosie's past--Benoît, her pen-pal from before she met Vincent. And being French, he's naturally charming, witty, romantic and everything poor old Vincent isn't. Think you can guess what's coming? Well, most likely you can--right down to the all-too-pat happy ending. Still, the actors (Christopher Ecclestone, Dervla Kirwan and Yvan Attal are the leads) are accomplished and watchable, the dialogue stays the right side of banal and it's refreshing to see Belfast shown as a civilised, cultured place to live. With or Without You passes an hour and a half pleasantly enough and may even raise the odd chuckle, but it covers well-trodden territory without much new to say. On the DVD: aptly routine stuff--the theatrical trailer, a bland "making of" featurette and some interviews with the three principal players. Widescreen (16:9 anamorphic) and Dolby Surround Sound give the material the best possible showcase. --Philip Kemp

• Manic | DVD | (30/08/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A troubled young man (Gordon-Levitt) is committed to a juvenile mental institution where he's forced by his counselor (Cheadle) to confront the source of his rage or face the grim prospect of a life behind bars...

• Double Tap | DVD | (05/04/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  An undercover FBI agent meets a druglord and his henchmen in a sting and as the smoke clears all the bad guys are dead. The FBI agent finds herself the sole survivor of a hitman...

• The Lord of the Rings -- Limited Edition Box Set | DVD | (26/11/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated adaptation of The Lord of the Rings is a bold, colourful, ambitious failure. Severely truncated, this two-hour version tackles only about half the story, climaxing with the battle of Helm's Deep and leaving poor Frodo and Sam still stuck on the borders of Mordor with Gollum. Allegedly, the director ran out of money and was unable to complete the project. As far as the film does go, however, it is a generally successful attempt at rendering Tolkien's landscapes of the imagination. Bakshi's animation uses a blend of conventional drawing and rotoscoped (traced) animated movements from live-action footage. The latter is at least in part a money-saving device, but it does succeed in lending some depth and a sense of otherworldly menace to the Black Riders and hordes of Orcs: Frodo's encounter at the ford of Rivendell, for example, is one of the film's best scenes thanks to this mixture of animation techniques. Backdrops are detailed and well conceived, and all the main characters are strongly drawn. Among a good cast, John Hurt (Aragorn) and C3PO himself, Anthony Daniels (Legolas), provide sterling voice characterisation, while Peter Woodthorpe gives what is surely the definitive Gollum (he revived his portrayal a couple of years later for BBC Radio's exhaustive 13-hour dramatisation). The film's other outstanding virtue is avant-garde composer Leonard Rosenman's magnificent score in which chaotic musical fragments gradually coalesce to produce the triumphant march theme that closes the picture. None of which makes up for the incompleteness of the movie, nor the severe abridging of the story actually filmed. Add to that some oddities--such as intermittently referring to Saruman as "Aruman"--and the final verdict must be that this is a brave yet ultimately unsatisfying work, noteworthy as the first attempt at transferring Tolkien to the big screen but one whose virtues are overshadowed by incompleteness. --Mark Walker

• The Sopranos - Complete HBO Series - Deluxe Edition | DVD | (24/11/2008) from £114.90   |  Saving you £15.09 (13.13%)   |  RRP £129.99

  Tony Soprano tries to be a good family man on two fronts - to his wife kids and widowed mother - and as a capo in the New Jersey mob. But when the pressures of work and family life start giving him panic attacks Tony begins seeing a therapist. These visits he keeps to himself because Tony has already identified his biggest problem - if one family doesn't kill him the other one will. The groundbreaking dramatic series from writer-producer David Chase stars James Gandolfini Lorraine Bracco Edie Falco Michael Imperioli and Nancy Marchand in an inside look at the family life of a modern-day mob boss. Part satirical loving homage to the influences of the great American gangster films part darkly comedic study of a New Jersey Italian-American family it is has become one of the most admired television series of all time.

• Phantasm III | DVD | (31/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Thirteen years after the original nightmare began Mike and Reggie reunite with the spirit of Mike's dead brother and are pursued by The Tall Man through warped dimensions of space and time. Who will reign supreme? Prepare to be scared witless as the fine line between the living and the dead snaps with a vengeance!