Stalingrad (20th Anniversary Edition) [Blu-ray]

100% waste of money states (Blue-ray) , but fails to state the version is for European only.

OK, first of all, Pretty Village Pretty Flame. The translation sucks, but then again, translating this movie sucks. Because unlike most people who will (hopefully) read this, I actually understand Serbian and let me tell you, when it comes to cursing, no language can beat it. The curses, which play an important role in this movie, making it both hilarious and tragic, are of truly epic proportions. I'm not allowed to use profanities in this review, so I won't. In a way, the movie is much like the speech Madeline Albright gave to Serbs during the NATO bombing: It makes you roll on the floor in laughter, just like you rolled on the floor when you heard her speak (her Serbian is the stuff of legends. Worse than average Italian English.). It also makes you cry because she, who once lived among them, is killing them. Just like in the movie. Friends killing friends. Well, anyway, the movie is well worth seeing, perhaps even more so if you understand the language. And there is one scene which is so tragic and yet so romantic... When this guy is wounded and knows he is dying and is preparing to shoot himself, he asks this (female) American journalist who's trapped in the tunnel along with them for, as he puts it:"Kiss for dead man." The kiss that follows is waaay better than all kisses in the entire history of movies. So full of love and you can see the journalist saying don't pull the trigger with her eyes, her face, her whole body and soul... gives me the shivers every time I see it. As I said before, you may not get the whole movie due to language barrier. But what remains still easily earns 5 stars.The other movie, Stalingrad, well, I (obviously) couldn't identify with it as well as I could with Pretty Village Pretty Flame, but it's still amazing. Ryan perhaps had better special effects. Big friggin deal. Thin Red Line is more poetic. So what. This is war. The complete and unabridged edition. No gun salute. No folded flags. No old man with a granddaughter with a nicely rounded granddaughter on a French cemetary with an American flag. Buy it. Watch it. Cry. You'll feel relieved afterwards.

This is a good film so I`m just going to review this release (the UK 20th Anniversary Edition)Picture quality: I also have the 2001 release DVD version of this film so am able to do a direct comparison and add comparison photo's so you can compare for yourself. The blu-ray is very much cleaner though a little bleached out & so less colourful. It is clearly a lot sharper than the DVD release so a fair amount of effort has been put into this, though I would add looking at other HD releases of old films, it could have been done a lot better.Sound quality: This is the big let down of this blu-ray, its just PCM 2.0, stated as stereo but is clearly just mono so you don't even have pro-logic encoded into the track. This is especially galling when comparing with the 2001 DVD release which has full 5.1 dolby digital, though with an English dub. There is no alternative sound track included.I really don't see how anyone could make such a poor job of a anniversary edition, the mono sound track means the film is very much less immersive and becomes more of a Sunday afternoon TV film.I suggest you look elsewhere for a version of the disk with better sound.

This is one of the all time to War films. I loved it and when it came out on DVD rushed a bought it. Horror! it was dubbed. You cant get the feeling, fear and passion the soldiers went through, with a bloke doing a dodgy German accent. This has the orginal with subtitles which is teh only way to watch. Fantastic. You do also have the option to listen to the dubbed version if you want a laugh.

A good Bluray of what is now a 20 year old movie. As a "dics" it is fine, good clear film with excellent subtitles, watching it in German and subtitled you would never again watch the dubbed version which was quite awful in terms of language went.

First got this film on VHS many years ago, was really pleased to see it released on Blu-ray. The picture and sound quality are good, much better than expected, and it was a good price too.

Excellent