Eastern Promises: HD DVD And DVD Combo Format Disc Review

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Title: Eastern Promises: HD DVD And DVD Combo Format

DVD Region: One

Genre: Drama

Stars: Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Vincent Cassel, and Armin Mueller-Stahl

Writer: Steve Knight

Director: David Cronenberg

Feature length: 1 hour and 41 minutes

Extras: Secrets And Stories Featurette and Marked For Life Featurette

HD DVD Exclusive Extras: Web Enabled Downloadable Exclusive Bonus Featurettes and Trailers

HD DVD Side Languages: English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround Sound and Dolby Digital 5.1 Plus Surround Sound

DVD Side: English and French Language Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound

Subtitles: English Subtitles For Deaf And Hearing Impaired and French Language Subtitles

Packaging: Red HD Case

Chapter Stops: 20

HD DVD Sound: Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround Sound and Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound

DVD Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound

Year of Theatrical Release: 2007/HD DVD & DVD Combo Format And DVD Release: 2007

Theatrical Distributor: Focus Features

Home Video Distributor: Universal Studios Home Entertainment

MPAA Rating: R

Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera

David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises is the latest film from great Canadian Auteur and in my opinion not only one of Cronenberg’s best feature films and certainly very accessible for the general public, but in many ways I found the film to be comparable to Martin Scorsese’s The Departed. Viggo Mortensen is a “driver” for the son of a notorious Russian crime boss in the United Kingdom. The crime family boss specializes in trafficking Russian women into the west as sex slaves. Mortensen’s character is charismatic and intelligent. He watches over his Captain and it would seem he falls on his sword for his Captain too. However the head of the crime family (Armin Mueller-Stahl) is dissatisfied with his son (Vincent Cassel) and angry that a “made” man was murdered without his authorization because now there will be assassins seeking retribution for the death of mobster his son had ties to. To make things more complicated, one of his slaves has somehow escaped the London brothel where the girls are kept in a stupor of drugs and alcohol and has died giving birth to a child who may be related to the crime boss. The connection is made through a diary the mother kept implicating the family and detailing the harsh actions that make Stahl’s character all the more frightening because throughout the entire film he never raises his voice. You never see him do anything directly illegal or violent to another person. He has a fatherly quality of the type that all he needs to do is nod and somehow all seems right with the world, but behind this demeanor is a true Machiavellian monster not to be taken lightly. This monster is never seen in action, but the description of his deeds contrasted with his demeanor in the film is enough to disturb anyone.

Naomi Watts is the midwife present at the baby’s birth whom innocently brings the diary home to have her Uncle transcribe it. When he warns her “never to steal from the dead,” she naively follows the clues to the Russian restaurant that serves as a legitimate front for the crime family’s dealings and thus places her and her family’s life in jeopardy.

Eastern Promises is thoroughly engrossing and an underrated gem that gives the viewer a unique look into a subculture that I think very few people are even aware of. The film is nicely balanced in presenting this subculture as something that is not indicative of Russian culture in general anymore than The Sopranos could be called a representation of Italian Americans. While the film thankfully avoids political correctness I could sense a richness to the culture in both Naomi Watt’s family and even in a birthday party scene at the restaurant of the crime family, which reminds the viewer that regardless of which side of the law these people may be on, they are still human beings that are no different from anyone else aside from what good and or bad elements they bring with them from their past. I personally feel this is an overlooked drama with especially noteworthy performances by Viggo Mortensen, Vincent Cassel, and Polish Actor, Writer and Director Jerzy Skolimowski, who plays Watt’s Uncle in the film.

Presented in a 1080p high definition widescreen aspect ratio as well as an anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) aspect ratio on the other side, one can see a huge difference in the picture quality between upconverted standard definition to near HD quality and true high definition. The colors and detail are very rich in true high definition and there is a shimmering quality I noticed in certain scenes on the DVD side that is not present on the HD DVD side. It should be noted that Eastern Promises is also available separately on standard definition DVD and the DVD features on the standard definition DVD are identical to the DVD side on the HD DVD and DVD hybrid version. A full English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround Soundtrack is provided as well as an English Dolby Digital 5.1 Plus Surround Soundtrack on the HD DVD side while the DVD features both an English and a French Language Dubbed Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Soundtrack. Both versions feature English Subtitles for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired and French Language Subtitles encoded as options The HD DVD and DVD versions include a revealing featurette regarding the development of the film with cast and Director interview clips (10:31) and a featurette regarding the significance of the tattoos in the film (6:41). The HD DVD side presents the film as well as all of the featurettes, regardless if they are web featurettes or those encoded directly on the disc in VC-1 1080p widescreen while the DVD side presents the featurettes in anamorphic widescreen with standard MPEG-2 encoding.

Exclusive to the HD DVD version are web enabled featurettes and trailers that are downloaded directly into your HD DVD player. These include a look behind-the-scenes at The Legendary Bath House Scene (1:53) with commentary by David Cronenberg and a fluffy featurette of Naomi Watts learning to ride her scooter like bike she uses in the film (: 54). Please note that my time count on these features differ from what the onscreen menu states so when this occurs I usually go with my player’s count as a result. Other web-enabled features include a trailer for Wanted (2:24), which sadly was presented window boxed and TV spots for The Kingdom (: 34), The Bourne Ultimatum (: 34), Heroes: Volume One (: 55) and two widescreen HD DVD promo spots with (2:50) and (2:18) respective run times and they look gorgeous.

The DVD side features a reel of previews for Atonement, Lust, Caution, Reservation Road, Canvas and an HD DVD promo spot (8:07). The seamless HDi enabled menus are beautifully constructed with scenes from the film and offer easy book marking of favorite scenes and so forth without interrupting the film. The DVD has standard interactive still frames with music from the film and the frames are easy to navigate. My only disappointment with this hybrid release was that there was no feature length audio commentary by David Cronenberg. He is one of those filmmakers who are always interesting to listen to. Hopefully if a future edition is ever released, maybe this will be included.

As it is Eastern Promises is definitely worth checking out regardless of what format it is seen in and is available on HD DVD and DVD Combo Format or standard DVD at retailers on and offline now courtesy of Universal Studios Home Entertainment.

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