Red Violin, The (UK)

This is an absorbing and powerful film, not necessarily for music-lovers although if you are a violinist then it would have to be a `must-see`. If that doesn`t clinch it for you, you also get to see Greta Scacchi nude (for a moment).

The film-making is interesting with a good variety of technique - for example, like Swordfish recently, there is one scene which you get to see several times over the course of the film from different points-of-view. There are several jumps in time and place, and when this happens you are not spoon fed but the story drip-feeds you clues so that you can follow what is going on.

My favourite part was an episode in China during the Cultural Revolution, which perfectly captured (what I imagine to be) the fear and fervour of those times. Excellent film-making.

Sadly, the DVD transfer was not A-grade. Although the picture is sharp, the black level and colour settings are very poor, giving a very dark and muddy-looking image - as you can see on the screenshots accompanying Mike McLaughlin`s review. If you turn up the brightness/gamma settings on your equipment, you will see a horrible mess in the dark areas, and a great deal of compression `noise` indicating a low bit-rate transfer. Transfer defects of this type seem to be common in many FilmFour-derived projects - maybe someone there dictates that art-house films should have this murky look?

In constrast to the poor video, the DD soundtrack is good, and certainly captures the sound of that violin at CD quality.

Fortunately, the film is so good, and the audio so important to the story, that the poor video quality of the transfer does not ruin the experience at all, hence the high overall rating for this disk.

If you can get it, though, I hear that the Region 1 version has a reference quality transfer and a DTS Soundtrack - maybe something to do with the involvement of New Line Cinema who usually produce excellent DVDs.

Almost five years after watching (and reviewing) the region 1 version of "The Red Violin", I got a chance to watch it again.
This is truly a remarkable movie that tells the story of a special violin during a period of over 3 centuries.
The entire cast delivers a superb performance.
The video transfer is perfect. There are no compression marks at all and the picture is crystal clear. Even the finest details (especially of the violin) are seen very clearly.
The DD 2.0 soundtrack is disappointing. The region 1 disc offers DTS and DD 5.1 soundtracks and this kind of a movie literally screams to be heard in DTS.
The menus are still and silent.
The disc offers no extras at all.
Bottom line - superb movie, but alas, a very weak disc.