The Great Raid - DVD (1 Viewer)

[David_Blackwell]

DVD Review (of the Director's Cut):
http://enterline2.tripod.com/the_great_raid_dc.html

Great DVD in the Miramax Collector's Series.

 

[Stephen Orr]

We rented the pan/scam version from Blockbuster. Shame. I would have bought it if it had been widescreen. As it is, we really liked the movie.

 

[Paul McElligott]

The director's cut is widescreen.

 

[BillGo]

The Great Raid 2-disc director's cut WS DVD comes packaged with a paperback version of the book upon which the movie is based. The book is also titled "The Great Raid", written by William B. Breuer and originally published in hardcover in 2002. The book reportedly tells the story with much more detail than the previous book about the event, "The Ghost Soldiers" by Hampton Sides.

I ordered my copy from Amazon which had the best price I could find. Obviously, it would have been cheaper if Miramax had not included the book.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the movie a lot. It makes a great addition to my collection of WWII war movies. I found the picture and sound quality fine, although not surprisingly, the audio was most dynamic during the actual raid. Also, the music was excellent.

 

[CraigF]

How did you know it came with a book? I still don't see that feature at amazon, am I blind (or just stupid)? And still haven't seen it in a local store... Thanks.

That would certainly help explain the price differential.

I am reconciled to the cuts, understand why they were made. The movie can stand without those scenes. Unlike certain "war" movies that can't stand without the "background" stuff (cough...Pearl Harbor).

 

[BillGo]

The WS director's cut of the Great Raid is packaged in an Amaray type 2 disc case, which in turn is packaged in a cardboard box along with the book. The front and rear of the box duplicate the cover art on the 2 disc case except that the front has the added words "book inside".

There is a lot of extra material on both discs. The deleted scenes consist of some scenes that were shortened, some are alternate versions of scenes in the film, and several that were totally deleted. John Dahl, the director explains that since the actual raid does not take a great deal of time, he wanted the earlier acts to move along so the audience would not get bored waiting for the big action. Hence, his reason for editing out what he felt are unneccesary scenes.

There is a lot of documentary material about the Bataan death march and the cruelty of the Japanese, leading to the death of many thousands of Americans who felt abandoned by the US, and an even greater number of Filipinos. Some of this historical material does tend to be repetitious. The irony is that many more died in the Philipines than did at Pearl Harbor since the attack on Pearl Harbor is observered whereas Bataan is not.

 

[David_Blackwell]

I have the two disc CE, but BVHE didn't send me the book that comes with it. I was scratching my head when the press release mentioned a book.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I didn't get one in my screener either. Odd, since they sent final retail product - if there's a book in the version you get at the stores, there should've been a book in review copies as well. After all, the Sin City 2-DVD set included the graphic novel...

 

[Harold Wazzu]

Just got around to buyin the DC and really liked it. I thought the end was a little long but didn't bother me a bit. It is one the greats as far as military movies are concerned, IMHO.