"Actor: Philip Tan"

• Stranger | Blu Ray | (15/10/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• China Cry | DVD | (04/07/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  Based on the autobiography of Sung Neng Yee this is a dramatic and powerful true story of a woman who found the courage to love and the strength to survive against all odds. Disenchanted by the economic misery caused by Mao Tze Tung's 'new society' she is taken to a labour camp overseen by the sadistic Colonel Cheng.

• Shanghai Surprise | DVD | (28/08/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Glendon Wasey (Sean Penn) is a fortune hunter looking for a fast track out of China. Gloria Tatlock (Madonna) is a missionary nurse seeking the curing powers of opium for her patients. Fate sets them on a hectic exotic and even romantic quest for stolen drugs. But they are up against every thug and smuggler in Shanghai.

• Shanghai Surprise | DVD | (10/04/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A romantic adventure for the dangerous at heart... Sean Penn is Glendon Wasey a quick-witted fortune hunter looking for a fast track out of China. Madonna is Gloria Tatlock a determined missionary nurse seeking the healing powers of opium for her patients. She wants to help the suffering...he wants the boat fare back to the States. So fate sets them on a hectic exotic chaotic and quite often romantic quest for stolen drugs. The trouble is the opium they're after is also the target of every thug and smuggler in Shanghai. It's a wild rickshaw-race adventure with every concubine Kung Fu killer and crime boss in town in hot pursuit! You're in for a Shanghai Surprise as Sean Penn and Madonna star in this high-flying grand adventure set in 1937 China with music by former Beatles guitarist George Harrison.

• Cider With Rosie | DVD | (03/03/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Based on a memoir of English writer Laurie Lee and featuring narration by Lee himself, this made-for-television adaptation begins in wartime 1918 with Lee's family moving to the Gloucestershire countryside. Juliet Stevenson (Truly, Madly, Deeply) shines as the matriarch of this large blended family, a compassionate and distracted woman who pines for the brood's missing father. The movie takes Lee from a young boy sleeping in his mother's bed through his girl-obsessed adolescence, fondly dealing with an assortment of relatives, schoolmates and villagers along the way. Lee doesn't actually have cider with girlfriend Rosie until a few minutes before the 82-minute movie ends, but in the meantime Charles Beeson, directing from an adaptation by John Mortimer, has offered up a gentle homage to long-passed era. --Kimberly Heinrichs, Amazon.com

• In Hell/Wake of Death/The Order | DVD | (02/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In Hell: Kyle Lord (Van Damme) is arrested and convicted for the vigilante killing of his wife's murderer. Kyle must survive life in a maximum-security prison where inmates are made to battle to their death in a brutal no holds barred fight called ""The Shu"" for the warden's entertainment and profit. Kyle fights his oppressors and is quickly sent to ""The Shu"" where his unbridled rage catapults him to the victor's circle. Kyle has become one of the monsters he despises and must now battle within himself to survive... (Dir. Ringo Lam 2003) Wake Of Death: Action superstar Jean-Claude Van Damme is back and at his hard-hitting best as Ben Archer an ex-mob enforcer seeking revenge against a ruthless Chinese kingpin responsible for his wife's brutal murder. When Archer joins forces with his old underworld friends an all-out war is waged against the Chinese Triads... Hong Kong favourite Simon Yam faces off against the Muscles From Brussels in this pulse-pounding action thriller! (Dir. Philippe Martinez 2004) The Order: Unleash The Power. Action superstar Jean-Claude Van Damme (Nowhere To Run Universal Soldier) is back in The Order a fast-paced high-octane thriller set in the Middle East. From the director of Double Impact and featuring screen legend Charlton Heston (Planet Of The Apes Any Given Sunday) Ben Cross (First Knight Chariots Of Fire) and sexy newcomer Sofia Milos The Order is an exciting adventure packed with extreme fight choreography exotic locations and non-stop action. Journey to a turbulent world under siege as reformed artifact smuggler Rudy (Van Damme) travels to Jerusalem to rescue his museum-curator father who's been kidnapped by ruthless fanatics and recover a sacred scroll believed to hold dangerous secrets of an underground sect. Framed for murder by a scheming police chief (Cross) Rudy enlists the aid of a mysterious beauty (Milos) to clear his name and wages a one-man battle to recapture the prized manuscript before the ultimate Holy War breaks out and all hell breaks loose! (Dir. Sheldon Lettich 2001)

• The Stranger | DVD | (18/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  The Stranger, according to Orson Welles, "is the worst of my films. There is nothing of me in that picture. I did it to prove that I could put out a movie as well as anyone else." True, set beside Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, or even The Trial, The Stranger is as close to production-line stuff as the great Orson ever came. But even on autopilot Welles still leaves most filmmakers standing. The shadow of the Second World War hangs heavy over the plot. A war crimes investigator, played by Edward G Robinson, tracks down a senior Nazi, Franz Kindler, to a sleepy New England town where he's living in concealment as a respected college professor. The script, credited to Anthony Veiller but with uncredited input from Welles and John Huston, is riddled with implausibilities: we're asked to believe, for a start, that there'd be no extant photos of a top Nazi leader. The casting's badly skewed, too. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead as the investigator and Robinson as Kindler, but his producer, Sam Spiegel, wouldn't wear it. So Welles himself plays the supposedly cautious and self-effacing fugitive--and if there was one thing Welles could never play, it was unobtrusive. What's more, Spiegel chopped out most of the two opening reels set in South America, in Welles' view, "the best stuff in the picture". Still, the film's far from a write-off. Welles' eye for stunning visuals rarely deserted him and, aided by Russell Metty's skewed, shadowy photography, The Stranger builds to a doomy grand guignol climax in a clock tower that Hitchcock must surely have recalled when he made Vertigo. And Robinson, dogged in pursuit, is as quietly excellent as ever. On the DVD: not much in the way of extras, except a waffly full-length commentary from Russell Cawthorne that tells us about the history of clock-making and where Edward G was buried, but precious little about the making of the film. Print and sound are acceptable, but though remastering is claimed, there's little evidence of it. --Philip Kemp

• Hitler's Fixer - The True Story Of Hitler's Deputy Martin Bormann | DVD | (09/06/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A one hour documentary about Hitler's deputy Martin Bormann one of the most powerful men in the third reich. He controlled access to Hitler and managed his political and private affairs. This film concentrates on the intense personal relationship between Hitler and Bormann showing how Bormann engineered a position for himself which was unparalleled within Hitler's inner circle. By the very end of the war Hitler named Bormann 'my most faithful party comrade' and appointed him the n

• Edward G. Robinson - Scarlet Street / The Stranger | DVD | (18/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In a way, Scarlet Street is a remake. It's taken from a French novel, La Chienne (literally, "The Bitch") that was first filmed by Jean Renoir in 1931. Renoir brought to the sordid tale all the colour and vitality of Montmartre; Fritz Lang's version shows us a far harsher and bleaker world. The film replays the triangle set-up from Lang's previous picture, The Woman in the Window, with the same three actors. Once again, Edward G Robinson plays a respectable middle-aged citizen snared by the charms of Joan Bennett's streetwalker, with Dan Duryea as her low-life pimp. The plot closes around the three of them like a steel trap. This is Lang at his most dispassionate. Scarlet Street is a tour de force of noir filmmaking, brilliant but ice-cold. The Stranger, according to Orson Welles, "is the worst of my films. There is nothing of me in that picture". But even on autopilot Welles still leaves most filmmakers standing. A war crimes investigator, played by Edward G Robinson, tracks down a senior Nazi to a sleepy New England town where he's living in concealment as a respected college professor. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead as the investigator and Robinson as the Nazi Franz Kindler, but his producer, Sam Spiegel, wouldn't wear it. So Welles himself plays the supposedly cautious and self-effacing fugitive--and if there was one thing Welles could never play, it was unobtrusive. Still, the film's far from a write-off. Welles' eye for stunning visuals rarely deserted him and, aided by Russell Metty's skewed, shadowy photography, The Stranger builds to a doomy grand guignol climax in a clocktower that Hitchcock must surely have recalled when he made Vertigo. And Robinson, dogged in pursuit, is as quietly excellent as ever. On the DVD: sparse pickings. Both films have a full-length commentary by Russell Cawthorne which adds the occasional insight, but is repetitive and not always reliable. The box claims both print have been "fully restored and digitally remastered", but you'd never guess. --Philip Kemp

• Wake Of Death | DVD | (08/08/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £44.99

• The Stranger | DVD | (18/10/1999) from £4.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (160.32%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The legendary story that hovers over Orson Welles' The Stranger is that he wanted Agnes Moorehead to star as the dogged Nazi hunter who trails a war criminal to a sleepy New England town. The part went to Edward G. Robinson, who is marvellous, but it points out how many compromises Welles made on the film in an attempt to show Hollywood he could make a film on time, on budget and on their own terms. He accomplished all three, turning out a stylish if unambitious film noir thriller, his only Hollywood film to turn a profit on its original release. Welles stars as unreformed fascist Franz Kindler, hiding as a schoolteacher in a New England prep school for boys and newly married to the headmaster's lovely if naive daughter (Loretta Young). Welles, the director, is in fine form for the opening sequences, casting a moody tension as agents shadow a twitchy low-level Nazi official skulking through South American ports and building up to dramatic crescendo as Kindler murders this little man, the lovely woods becoming a maelstrom of swirling leaves that expose the body he furiously tries to bury. The rest of the film is a well designed but conventional cat-and-mouse game featuring an eye-rolling performance by Welles and a thrilling conclusion played out in the dark clock tower that looms over the little village. --Sean Axmaker

• The Stranger | DVD | (17/11/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  The Stranger, according to Orson Welles, "is the worst of my films. There is nothing of me in that picture. I did it to prove that I could put out a movie as well as anyone else." True, set beside Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, or even The Trial, The Stranger is as close to production-line stuff as the great Orson ever came. But even on autopilot Welles still leaves most filmmakers standing. The shadow of the Second World War hangs heavy over the plot. A war crimes investigator, played by Edward G Robinson, tracks down a senior Nazi, Franz Kindler, to a sleepy New England town where he's living in concealment as a respected college professor. The script, credited to Anthony Veiller but with uncredited input from Welles and John Huston, is riddled with implausibilities: we're asked to believe, for a start, that there'd be no extant photos of a top Nazi leader. The casting's badly skewed, too. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead as the investigator and Robinson as Kindler, but his producer, Sam Spiegel, wouldn't wear it. So Welles himself plays the supposedly cautious and self-effacing fugitive--and if there was one thing Welles could never play, it was unobtrusive. What's more, Spiegel chopped out most of the two opening reels set in South America, in Welles' view, "the best stuff in the picture". Still, the film's far from a write-off. Welles' eye for stunning visuals rarely deserted him and, aided by Russell Metty's skewed, shadowy photography, The Stranger builds to a doomy grand guignol climax in a clock tower that Hitchcock must surely have recalled when he made Vertigo. And Robinson, dogged in pursuit, is as quietly excellent as ever. On the DVD: not much in the way of extras, except a waffly full-length commentary from Russell Cawthorne that tells us about the history of clock-making and where Edward G was buried, but precious little about the making of the film. Print and sound are acceptable, but though remastering is claimed, there's little evidence of it. --Philip Kemp

• Grass | DVD | (30/09/2007) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-4.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Grass marks a welcome return for The Fast Show's overzealous know-it-all Billy Bleach. Written by (along with Andrew Collins) and starring Simon Day he actually created the character of Billy almost ten years ago for use in his stand up routines. After witnessing a gangland murder self-made loser Billy Bleach is forced to grass on villain Harry Taylor and is given a new identity. How will he cope in the village of Little Mockwell in deepest rural Norfo

• The Stranger | DVD | (02/02/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The Stranger, according to Orson Welles, "is the worst of my films. There is nothing of me in that picture. I did it to prove that I could put out a movie as well as anyone else." True, set beside Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, or even The Trial, The Stranger is as close to production-line stuff as the great Orson ever came. But even on autopilot Welles still leaves most filmmakers standing. The shadow of the Second World War hangs heavy over the plot. A war crimes investigator, played by Edward G Robinson, tracks down a senior Nazi, Franz Kindler, to a sleepy New England town where he's living in concealment as a respected college professor. The script, credited to Anthony Veiller but with uncredited input from Welles and John Huston, is riddled with implausibilities: we're asked to believe, for a start, that there'd be no extant photos of a top Nazi leader. The casting's badly skewed, too. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead as the investigator and Robinson as Kindler, but his producer, Sam Spiegel, wouldn't wear it. So Welles himself plays the supposedly cautious and self-effacing fugitive--and if there was one thing Welles could never play, it was unobtrusive. What's more, Spiegel chopped out most of the two opening reels set in South America, in Welles' view, "the best stuff in the picture". Still, the film's far from a write-off. Welles' eye for stunning visuals rarely deserted him and, aided by Russell Metty's skewed, shadowy photography, The Stranger builds to a doomy grand guignol climax in a clock tower that Hitchcock must surely have recalled when he made Vertigo. And Robinson, dogged in pursuit, is as quietly excellent as ever. On the DVD: not much in the way of extras, except a waffly full-length commentary from Russell Cawthorne that tells us about the history of clock-making and where Edward G was buried, but precious little about the making of the film. Print and sound are acceptable, but though remastering is claimed, there's little evidence of it. --Philip Kemp

• Beaches/When A Man Loves A Woman | DVD | (05/11/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Beaches: (Dir. Garry Marshall) (1988): Two very different young girls meet on a beach in a 1950s American resort. CC Bloom (Bette Midler) is a brash confident minx determined to make it in the glitzy world of show business. Hillary (Barbara Hershey) is a wealthy restrained and privileged WASP who seems destined for a life as a trophy wife. Against all odds their friendship survives through broken marriages diverging careers and the trials of life. When A Man Loves A Woman: (Dir. Luis Mandoki) (1997): Alice and Michael Green are a passionate couple who have worked hard to build a good life for themselves and their two young daughters. But a dark secret from Alice's past is about to surface - a secret that threatens to destroy them as lovers as a family and as individuals.

• Bloodsport | DVD | (28/05/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A powerful three-in-one special for all Martial arts enthusiasts consisting of the sequels to Bloodsport starring Jean Claude Van Damme. Bloodsport 2: This film tells the story of Alex (Bernhardt) a known street fighter and petty villain who has been imprisoned following the theft of an ancient sword. Prison however proves to be his making as he is taught the deadly fight discipline known as 'The Iron Hand' by his mentor Sun (James Hong). Bloodsport 3: In this frantic movie alex learns of his mentor's death murdered by the evil Duvalier at the hands of his warrior 'The Kumite Beast.' To avenge Sun's death Alex finds himself drawn into the dangerous world of the Kumite. It's a contest where a fight to the death is often the outcome and 'The Beast' could well prove his equal. Bloodsport 4: Bernhardt is John Keller a police officer. A local prison discovers that inmates have disappeared under strange circumstances and it's Keller who is asked to go undercover to unearth the reason why.