Rating: 
Summary: definately worth every penny. Tolstoi would be proud !
Review: This is the best DVD edition of Voina i Mir (War and Peace) available. It contains the 'long lost' widescreen footage. It is directed by Sergi Bondarchuk who is the father of Natalya Bondarchuk best known for her role in the original and better version of Solaris.This film was originally released as a serial. Each part made seperately.(kind of like the star wars film but these were made in order) It took a total of 3 years to make. Said to be closer to the book than almost all movies based on books. The pacing may be slow to some due to the length of the film. I consider this to be one of the chronicles of Russian Cinema. I have been interested in Russian culture for a very long time and this is the kind of film that makes me wish I was Russian. On a rainy weekend I could invite my Russian friends over, bring out a samovar filled with Russian Caravan tea, also blini and kvas will go well with it too. It also has subtitles in almost a dozen languages! more like this available from the Russian Cinema Council (Ruscico) If you don't like this kind of film you can still buy it to cure your insomnia.
Rating: 
Summary: philo-slavs unite!
Review: this may indeed be the great (chinese) wall of the soviet cinema. the maker(s) of the movie wanted to get across a few points: tolstoy's novel was followed verbatim, russia is a peaceful, god- and peoples-loving country, show the prowess of russian classics in the soviet-directors' hermeneutics etc. at national level the dialectical key of the whole exercise is that moral superiority (or lack thereof) determines the results of battles. as practical advice, watch this movie with utmost interest in case you read the novel or you have some great interest in russia . otherwise, what is meant to be a masterpiece novel about individuals in exceptional circumstances is being transformed into a movie about the caloric strength of russian people--how they could defeat WINTER so much better....
Rating:
Summary: I'm a bit disappointed!
Review: This review concerns the much anticipated RUSCICO DVD released on June 3, 2003 by Image Entertainment after about a six month delay. First of all, it is undoubtedly the best version of War and Peace that you can get. It is, of course, the definitive Russian 1967 extravaganza reputed to be the most expensive movie ever made and paid for by the taxpayers of the former USSR. I should mention that I also own a VHS copy of this film by Kultur, the dubbed in English standard screen size version, and I am apparently one of the few people who will admit to liking the Kultur version. The new Image DVD is definitely far superior in many ways. It has a magnificent widescreen picture and includes scenes not seen in the Kultur version. There are, however, some problems with the soundtrack. If you select English as the language with the subtitles turned off approximately 40% of the dialog is still in Russian and English subtitles will come on anyway. This sometimes happens in the middle of a conversation. The narrator is different than in the Kultur dubbed version and the translation is somewhat different. I personally liked the Kultur translation better in some spots. For example, at the very beginning and at the very end the narrator states the basic point or argument that If evil men can work together to get what they want, then good men should be able to do so also. In this new translation evil men is replaced by corrupt people and good men is replaced by honest people, and to get what they want is replaced by become a force. There are whole conversations that take place in French so that you must have the English subtitles on to get this (if you do not speak French), but then they are also on when English is spoken (I hate this). There are scenes during the battle of Borodino where Napoleon has brief conversations with his officers. In the Kultur dubbed version you get what they are saying but in this new Image DVD they are speaking French without any translation or even English subtitles and at least one remark you cannot even hear in French. This is very unfortunate because when Napoleon is on the screen is important to this film. The dubbed in English voices seem to me to be a lot like the ones in the earlier Kultur dubbed version so that I think that they may have used the same soundtrack for the DVD as in the Kultur version for dialog that they felt was correctly translated and then left in the original Russian with English subtitles for dialog that they disagreed with the translation, or something like this . I wish that they had simply put all of the Russian dialog into dubbed English (when English language is selected) and then had English subtitles when French or another foreign language is spoken. I find it annoying the way it is now. I paid about $$ for this DVD and, although I certainly would not ask for my money back I think they owed me a better job on the English language soundtrack. Thank you.
Rating: 
Summary: poor bit rate ruins effort
Review: This well presented and attractively packaged boxed set suffers terribly from an insufficient bit rate which results in continuous compression artifacts throughout the entire film.
In plain english, the picture quality is fine in a still shot, but during camera pans and quick movement in a shot there are very noticeable jagged edges to the picture (the picture quality is similar to the bonus material on your average DVD). This problem is very apparent when this film is viewed on a big screen TV. This defeciency coupled with the subtitles and the length of the film can result in quite a headache for the viewer. I'm not certain why a dvd produced in 2002 would have this problem. There are 4 disks (3 of which are about 90-100 minutes) so there should be sufficient disk space for a higher quality picture. The sound (dolby digital 5.1 in Russian, English and French) is quite good. Much better that the usual 5.1 remix of a mono movie. Sometimes the 5.1 mix is a bit overdone (when a actor is speaking from off camera their heavily reverbed disembodied voice is emmited from one of the rear channels) but in general it is apparent a lot of effort was put into the remixing. This is a lot better that the usual mono to 5.1 remix where half of the music cues are processed but 80% of the sound goes solely to the center speaker. It is a real shame that Ruscico didn't put the same effort into the picture quality. There are some other small technical difficulties with the disk and the english dubbing is terrible (as it was when the film was theatrically released in North America). However, all of this pales in comparison with the picture quality which ruins the entire effort. Unfortunately, the only other option is the Kultur pan and scan version. Although, I have not seen the DVD version I have seen it on VHS and can advise that this is a movie that must be seen in widescreen to be fully appreciated.
Rating:
Summary: Spectacle & Reverence....
Review: You will never see a movie like the Russian War and Peace ever again. With battle scenes involving 200,000 extras (the Russian Army), made prior to CGI, the film has awesome scope and spectacle to spare, as well as a reverence for the source material, Tolstoy's massive and magnificent novel. It will not please all fans of the novel, no movie can ever do that, but it is a worthy effort in trying to capture Tolstoy's sprawling story, which itself shifts from the spectacle of the wars with Napolean to the intimacy of family life and society in 19th century Russia. There is meticulous recreation of the lifestyles of the nobility of the era, and some simply incredible sweeping re-staging of the key battles of Austelitz and later the War of 1812. Shot with incredible tracking shots, crane shots and aerial camerawork, there are images here that are stunning. Perhaps the more intimate stories of the loves of Natasha (a marvelous Irina Skobtseva, a Natalya for all times), the travails of Prince Andrei and Pierre are somewhat overwhelmed by the greater spectacle of the war, but we come to know them nonetheless. Some of the other characters that are vivid in the novel are given short shrift, but in so huge an undertaking, I don't know how that could be avoided. More than one viewing will help to sort them all out. At any rate, we are left with an incredible effort to capture the sweep of history and its effects on the individuals caught up in it. Tolstoy's themes of love and death, of the horror and futility of war, of the price paid by all for the egotism of a Napolean and the ambitions of ruthless men, are here. The foolish & foolhardy, the wise and the devious, the courageous and the cowards, the loving and the indifferent, i.e., all the very human characters in Tolstoy's Russia are here as well. And the great span of the film allows us to see them grow and change. Not perfect, but a hugely ambitious film that succeeds more often than not. Worth it.
Rating: 
Summary: Ruscico War & Peace DVD is horribly defective
Review: ZERO STARS. What a dissappointment! The film randomly switches between English and Russian and French dubbing ---sometimes in the same section--- and the subtitles don't always come on in English. I tried it on 2 DVD players so it is quite defective. Judging from some other reviews, other people are experiencing it but for some strange reason they find this acceptable. This is the first DVD I have ever seen which was this screwed up. Too bad----a great movie which I still have only on Beta (Kultur version).
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